I collected this piece 20+yrs ago reaching between boulders in a blasted muckpile pulling out large pieces and later putting it back together. Not realizing other large chards of dark smoky quartz was part of the same piece I chucked them to the quarry floor so I didn't draw attention to spot by leaving them laying around. After closer inspection at home realizing all the pieces fit together and repairing the piece, I knew those large chards I chucked would have made this specimen complete. I learned the hard way. When I glanced at this piece the other day I wondered how many other collectors in their early days made similar mistakes and what they might have been. http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254289#msg-254289 Thu, 23 May 2013 23:32:36 +0000 Phorum 5.2.15a http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254793#msg-254793 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254793#msg-254793 Rowan Lytle Scrapbook Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:35:08 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254694#msg-254694 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254694#msg-254694 Adam Berluti Scrapbook Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:47:07 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254685#msg-254685 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254685#msg-254685 Rowan Lytle Scrapbook Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:32:21 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254596#msg-254596 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254596#msg-254596
we can then link it to a 'questioned species' on the Penrose page, so it will be in the listings as

Kottigite ? (with a link to your article)

This may encourage others to look through their specimens too, and also means if someone in the future does prove it is from there, they will at least likely give you a credit in their article for possibly finding it first.

Jolyon]]> Jolyon & Katya Ralph Scrapbook Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:20:26 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254595#msg-254595 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254595#msg-254595 Wheal Penrose), at Porthleven in Cornwall, finding various pieces of galena, chalcopyrite, sphalerite and and siderite, together with some yellow powdery material I later identified by XRD as "jarosite", although as it is encrusting galena, it may well be plumbojarosite. I never checked its EDS spectrum to confirm which it is, so I haven't added either of those minerals to the Mindat list for the locality. (I no longer have access to EDS analysis, so can't check it now, but I do still have the specimen if anyone wants a bit to analyse).

However, that omission is a minor one compared to what resulted from my near-dismissal of some other odd material I also found on that trip. On one piece of sphalerite I had seen a very small area (a few square mm) with a very thin (few 10s of microns) crust of pale pink material which I did not bother to search for any more of. I thought might be either carminite or erythrite (although there is apparently no Co or As mineralisation nearby).

Back in the lab., the qualitative EDS spectrum showed that it contained major Zn and As, and XRD (by Debye-Scherrer powder camera) suggested that it was köttigite, which at that time had never been reported from Britain. However, the XRD spindle had used up just about all I had, and the pattern was indistinct as the material was impure, so I wasn't certain enough of my data to report it.

When I next went collecting in west Cornwall several years later, I went back to the locality where I had found my "köttigite" to search for some more, hoping to find enough to get a better analysis so that I could write up my paper on the "First British Occurrence of Köttigite": the spot where I had collected it was now buldozed flat, and being used as a car park! Despite searching what little dump area was still accessible (much was now grassed over or concealed under gorse), and carefully examining every other piece I had previously collected when I got home, I never found any more of that enigmatic pink powder!

Pete N.

PS: Having written this, I am very tempted to go back through my Wheal Penrose specimens and split them all down into tiny pieces in the off-chance that I find another specimen of that elusive Köttigite!]]> Peter Nancarrow Scrapbook Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:09:46 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254586#msg-254586 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254586#msg-254586 remember to take my credit card to a mineral show!!! - At least according to my wife...

Many, many years ago I had the occasion to visit the Diamond Rocks locality in the Mourne mountains (Ireland) and found some decent Beryl and Topaz. At one point I came across a rather grotty grayish quartz prism with no terminations a couple of inches long at the base of a vugh. I hit the back to see if there were any other cavities there - and saw a shower of blue-green gemmy fragments arise from where the 'quartz' had been... I then realised that the striations on the prism face had been going the wrong way - lengthwise not crosswise... I still regret that hammer blow!

Cheers

Tim]]> Timothy Greenland Scrapbook Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:25:39 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254579#msg-254579 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254579#msg-254579
I was a senior at Michigan Tech in the spring of 1989, studying geological engineering in the heart of the Keweenaw. A day field trip was organized to the White Pine copper mine down the road in Ontonagon County. I can't even remember why I passed it up now, probably something related to finishing up some final projects, but those who went told stories of chucking slabs of native copper in the back of their trucks. The White Pine was the last operating large-scale copper copper mine in the Keweenaw, closing down in 1995.

I now must pay for the occasional White Pine piece to complement my copper-focused collection.

In ~1992, while doing grad work at Stanford the ore deposits group visited the McLaughlin gold mine up here in Napa County. While trudging between pits I saw a bizarre, crescent moon-shaped silhouette from about 50 feet away. When I scooted up close, it turned out to be a quartz-lined vug with sprays of grotty stibnite up to 15+cm long crusted with something. Very thin, only about 1cm at their widest, but just amazing to find lying on the side of an active mine amidst the dumps. Also completely impossible to remove on matrix, given it was spurting out of a several hundred pound boulder. In retrospect I wish I'd just broken them off and saved them, but somehow I convinced myself that it was sacrilegious and that the only way something that stupidly delicate could have survived was that someone at the mine must have put it off to the side. Now probably under large amounts of reclaimed fill.

And just to add a link to Gene's story above, I currently have one of those Garnet Hill scheelites he described on loan from his collecting buddy John. John was doing some garage cleaning and unearthed a nice scheelite from that trip; he doesn't have a setup to take pics and asked me to shoot and post on his behalf. (Timing completely unrelated to this thread -- I just have had camera issues of late and haven't done the deed yet!)

Fun topic, hope to hear more.

Cheers,
Don]]> Don Windeler Scrapbook Wed, 07 Mar 2012 06:03:59 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254552#msg-254552 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254552#msg-254552 -------------------------------------------------------
> Once I forgot to take my credit card to a mineral
> show.
I hate it when that happens!]]> Rowan Lytle Scrapbook Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:57:13 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254538#msg-254538 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254538#msg-254538
For me when i just begun collecting i would haul tones of material home. Anything that looked interesting i would take. Very quickly i amassed a large inventory. Of course at the time it all looked interesting. Looking back on the stuff in storage recently, i wished i left 95% of it where ti was!

My other blunder was when i started collecting, three close sites around Bancroft were still open: Cancrinite Hill, Lilly Robertson, & Davis Hill. I unfortunately never went there then because it was so close to town i figured i can go there anytime. When that time finally came it turns out a property owner bought the property where all 3 sites were on. So in one fell swoop 3 sites became off limits. It still angers me when i think about the missed opportunity.

Michael.]]> Michael Adamowicz Scrapbook Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:24:18 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254471#msg-254471 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254471#msg-254471 Steve Hardinger Scrapbook Tue, 06 Mar 2012 05:19:58 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254468#msg-254468 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254468#msg-254468
A decade ago while collecting at Limecrest Quarry in Sparta, NJ a fine mirror faced brown crystal of uvite about 3 inches in diameter was located in a tight opening between monster boulders of marble. I was able to skinny into the opening but had no room to swing my hammer and so I reluctantly left it there in place and thought to retrieve it on my next field trip back to the quarry. It was "out of sight" and protected. So at the next FOMS field trip there I went to the bench where the boulders were and to my great dismay that bench had been back-filled over the boulders with dirt and waste rock to a depth of about TWENTY feet. There was no specimen retrieval possible now and that crystal lies buried and entombed. In retrospect not putting in the effort THEN to retrieve the crystal was a big blunder!!!]]> Steven Kuitems Scrapbook Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:55:35 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254467#msg-254467 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254467#msg-254467 Keith Wood Scrapbook Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:50:10 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254456#msg-254456 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254456#msg-254456
I go out at night with the SW light looking for fluorescents and usually find some nice stuff but can't carry it home in the dark . . . I make a mental note and try and leave a small rock or a stick on top of it so I can go back the next day in the light to get it. One particular morning, I got back to my find and the rock seemed bigger but there was the stick so I lugged this eighty pounder a couple of hundred yards through the woods to the house and off to work I went. I was so looking forward to washing it off and seeing how really nice it would fluoress. After work I waited for dark, put the light on it and there was nothing. I brought home the wrong rock... I don't leave sticks on rocks anymore!]]> Glenn Rhein Scrapbook Tue, 06 Mar 2012 01:48:31 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254449#msg-254449 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254449#msg-254449
This is not my greatest blunder, but one of the lesser that I can finally allow myself to admit to. I was at our mineral group meeting last night and one of my very old friends(?), John, had to relate to the group about one of our field trips, some 40 years ago. My version of the story is far kinder than his.

We had each been digging in our own holes, perhaps 20 feet apart, and I began to find some fairly nice epidote crystals. As I remember, it was very hot, but I dug feverishly through the decomposing garnet, epidote and quartz, while hording up all the epidote crystals that were contained therein. Noting my silence and the amount of material flying out of my hole, John called over to me to ask if I was finding anything. I replied, "no, just some crappy quartz" and tossed a couple over to him. I was keeping the epidote a secret to blow his mind later at camp. He asked if he could have some of the crappy quartz and I responded that he could have it all, while gloating over my find of great epidotes [www.mindat.org]. Well, there was quite a lot of the quartz and he took it all, to my amazement. I guessed that his taste in minerals was not yet as advanced as mine. Later, at camp, when I showed him the epidotes, he was indeed surprised and very impressed by the specimens. I kidded him about not finding any of the epidote and after the fun was over, he casually asked me if I had kept any of the scheelite crystals for myself.

Gene]]> Mineralogical Research Company Scrapbook Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:47:33 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254436#msg-254436 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254436#msg-254436 BOB HARMAN Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:28:06 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254433#msg-254433 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254433#msg-254433

Two years ago I was at Upper New Street in Paterson when I came across what looked like Fluorite with Calcite in basalt. Although that occurs in some trap rock quarries, I was unaware of Fluorite being found at New Street. I gathered a large amount of the material together when suddenly all was revealed. A Mockinbird was gorging on purple berries above my head and was busy making deposits in the rocks below where I was sitting.

Moral of the story. It really helps to discover a potential blunder before you leave the locality.]]> David Bernstein Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:23:46 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254423#msg-254423 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254423#msg-254423 John Montgomery Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:03:24 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254419#msg-254419 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254419#msg-254419 Alfredo Petrov Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:39:38 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254417#msg-254417 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254417#msg-254417 Many :)
...and still make them.
It was 1982? I was 12, with my parents, in Odda. A month in Norway and Sweden.
My parents wanted to go walking in the Hardangervidda for a few days, sleep in mountainhuts etc.
My brother and I wanted to swim, to canoe and eat pizza every day.
We stayed on the camping in Odda and went for pizza.......

P.s.: my first "mineral" was a piece of rounded frosted green Heineken glass I found on the beach (when I was 7?). I went to the local library (no Mindat back then) and looked for a gem book, because I thought I had perhaps found an Emerald that someone lost on the beach. Yep....]]> Frank de Wit Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:31:14 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254415#msg-254415 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254415#msg-254415
cheers]]> Johan Kjellman Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:26:18 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254411#msg-254411 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254411#msg-254411
Mike]]> D Mike Reinke Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:17:07 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254398#msg-254398 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254398#msg-254398
Cheers!
Mark]]> Mark Godon Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:50:36 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254390#msg-254390 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254390#msg-254390
We owned and operated a nature store in a mall for a number of years, and now and then people would come in with questions or with things to identify. A young man came in and said that he had a fossil dinosaur tooth in his car, and would I come out to the parking lot and have a look. I asked him to bring it inside as we were busy. About a half hour later he came back, staggering along with a great, conical chunk of pebbly concrete in his arms. The thing probably weighed 50 pounds! Even having dug the the thing up near an old construction site, the guy was absolutely convinced that he had a real fossil and that it was worth a lot of money. It took a while to help him understand why it wasn't what he thought it was, and he left....and he generously left the "tooth" for us to dispose of. I think that his budding interest in the hobby stopped right then.

Cheers!

Steve]]> Stephen Rose Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:26:48 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254381#msg-254381 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254381#msg-254381
On one of my first field trips back in 1966 I went to the Andover, New Jersey area with the Parkers to collect minerals. I was a novice and they were seasoned field collectors. I was proud of the large matrix specimen with black crystals I had found and showed the piece to Fred Parker, Sr. who immediately told me it was a beautiful example of concrete with rock inclusions.

Best wishes,

Joe]]> Joseph Polityka Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:31:12 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254366#msg-254366 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254366#msg-254366 John]]> John Montgomery Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:28:57 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254336#msg-254336 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254336#msg-254336 John Kirtz Scrapbook Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:54:11 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254324#msg-254324 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254324#msg-254324
Re, fluorescent repsonse. When I was very young and before age restricted collecting was the norm at Quarries, my Dad took me to a major Strontianite location in Winfield, Pennsylvania. We brought home quite a load and washed everything off in some sudsy water-I think we used Ajax. We then hit everything with a UV light. Everything glowed blue and white I believe. we were very excited until someone in the know advised us that what was glowing was the detergent!]]> David Bernstein Scrapbook Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:34:17 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254318#msg-254318 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254318#msg-254318
My first (and most infamous) blunder occurred at a campground on Lake Superior many years ago. We were on vacation and decided to go hunt for agates during the daylight. We actually found quite a number of small ones and decided that since we had a UV light we would wait until night to search the beach for fluorescent minerals. Sure enough, we found lots of rocks along the beach that glowed a nice purple/white colour so we collected almost a 5 gallon bucket full and hauled them back to our campsite. Because it was late, we didn't check them under normal light and just went to bed. Next morning we woke up and began to examine our "glowing" rocks. It was then that we realised it was nothing more than sea gull droppings on common beach rocks......]]> Paul Brandes Scrapbook Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:50:41 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254314#msg-254314 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254314#msg-254314
Washing everything off at home, I discovered much to my horror that I was the proud owner of seventy pounds of concrete. What a day.]]> David Bernstein Scrapbook Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:57:19 +0000 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254289#msg-254289 http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,17,254289,254289#msg-254289 Michael Otto Scrapbook Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:04:12 +0000