Mindat Mineralogy Messageboard - Best Minerals W

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:52:39 +0000

Rock,
I have exchanged one of my pics of Stefanie Mine. I am sure you will like the new one as it is my best Wulfenite photo up to now.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:12:08 +0000

It works for me!

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:16:50 +0000

Rock,
I have added Anton Watzl's Wulfenite from Pure Potential Mine into your article.
I hope that is in your interest.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 22:26:18 +0000

Yes, this one needs to go into the article.

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 20:02:18 +0000

Rock,
Anton Watzl uploaded a Wulfenite from the Pure Potential Mine yesterday which I think fits perfectly well for your article.
Here in Europe it is said that all the best specimens are bought by American collectors. Is it now the other way round?;-)


© Anton Watzl Sr.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:15:28 +0000

Danke, Martin!
I feel happy that you also like the article in Lapis.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Martin Rich — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:53:49 +0000

Hello Rudolf!

Thank you for your fine work on Mindat and thank you for the article about Bleiberg in the Lapis mineral magacine. A very personally point of view about mineral collecting in Bleiberg - I love it!

Stay tuned!

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:31:28 +0000

Worthy additions to the article. Ill take ten of them please!

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:07:33 +0000

Rock,
I have added two pictures at Stefanie Mine. I think you might like them.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 05:18:27 +0000

Jean,
What makes you certain that the specimen is from that locality?

Re: Wulfenite

Jean Sendero — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:18:39 +0000

Rock,

I have attached photos of a fine example of a wulfenite from Mexico, Chihuahua, Cuchillo Parado, Mina Aurora from my collection. I am certain that it is from that locality. Typical crystal form for the local.

Miniature size specimen with the dimensions of 4.5 x 4 x 3 cm with the main Wulfenite crystal standing at 2.2 cm.

Cheers

Jean

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:35:14 +0000

AJMI
Good sharp eyes you have. In principal, I can sit still for the authors of the best minerals articles having two images of the same specimen, but it is one of my articles and since you pointed out that they are the same specimen and since the quality of this wulfenite specimen from Austria is not particularly outstanding, certainly one of them is more than sufficient. We don't usually use images of micro minerals because of depth of field problems, but the crystal shape of the wulfenite was quite nice and I try to include micro images where ever I can so these collectors and photographers won't feel frozen out of the best minerals articles. I have removed one of the duplicates from the article.

The reverse images of the Mexican wulfenite listed with two different localities made me laugh. I removed both of them from the article and deleted the Aurora Mine, Cuchillo Parado, Mun. de Coyame, Chihuahua, Mexico locality entirely, until it can be better demonstrated that this is indeed a locality that produces worthwhile wulfenites. I also sent complaint letters to both the individuals who uploaded the images. It will be interesting to see what kind of resolution happens here. We may end up consigning both images to their personal galleries.

Again, thanks for your good sharp and critical eyes. We need more people like you helping to clean up errors on mindat and lord know there are plenty of them.

Re: Wulfenite

AJMI — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 02:52:50 +0000

I'm not sure if this matters or not, but there are some duplicate specimens on the Best Minerals Wulfenite page.

For instance, here's the same wulfenite specimen with the image rotated 180 degrees:

[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]

And here's the same wulfenite specimen, image rotated 90 degrees, and supposedly from two different mines:

[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 09:11:10 +0000

Rock,
I cannot stop making pictures of good Wulfenites. Here are 3 more of them. Just have a look at them and do not feel obliged to put them into the article.

Rudolf
[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:57:34 +0000

Volkmar,
Thanks for pointing me to the American Mineralogist article on large crystals. As to its references to wulfenite, it points to the Mineralogical Record data which is I think correct. As to the reference to the M'fouati locality, it indicates it is in Morocco which tells me that the author had the country wrong and is not reliable in this case. There is one picture of M'fouati wulfenite in our database of over a kg and this may be the largest by weight. I have adjusted the maximum size for wulfenite reference in the introductory remarks. I have made an inquiry as to a possible heavier M'fouati crystal and may revise that estimate upward later. Thanks again for helping make this Best Minerals article more accurate.

Re: Wulfenite

Volkmar Stingl — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 08:39:27 +0000

Hello Rock,

66 is the number (volume) of the journal. The pages are 885-907. See [www.minsocam.org]

Volkmar

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 07:27:08 +0000

Volkmar,
I was able to verify your references to the .6m size of Tsumeb Wulfenite in the Mineralogical Record. However you reference to page 66 of the 1981 American mineralogist put me in an article by Novak & Holdaway of the Metamorphic Petrology of South-Central Maine. Could you have made an error in your attribution here?

Re: Wulfenite

Volkmar Stingl — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:41:06 +0000

>Key (1977, p.50) wrote "These reached the
astounding size of 2 feet (0.61 m) in diameter, but
they were so thin and fragile that damage was severe:
a sample from this occurrenoe is on display in the
American Museum." Pinch and Wilson (1977, p.34)
similar$ described ". . . thin crystals up to 60 cm
across intergrown with each other," as occurring at
this locality.<

This is cited from Peter C. Rickwood (1981): The largest crystals. - American Mineralogist, 66 (1981). It seems, that Tsumeb had the largest crystals of wulfenite worldwide (up to 61 cm according to this article).

Volkmar

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:47:11 +0000

Rudolf,
Thanks for the good catch. The 4th one was actually .9cm wide and I have changed it to 9mm. Yes, the Wulfenite article is OK, but imagine how good it will be if ten more people like yourself help make it better and add more good information for the article. If we keep working on Best Minerals for another 20 years, imagine what it will look like then.

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:47:37 +0000

Rock,
The Best Minerals Wulfenite article really looks great already. I must say I always have been looking for something comprehensive like this before.
By scrolling through it I only found two minor mistakes that I think I have to tell you: At the Red Cloud Mine section the scales at the 2nd and the 4th image are not right. They say: 9cm wide instead of 2cm.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Harjo Neutkens — Mon, 28 May 2012 19:39:37 +0000

And I couldn't resist adding the cool Wulfenite on Hemimorphite from Rudolf Kofler's collection ;-)

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Tue, 08 May 2012 06:48:38 +0000

Rudolf,
I could not resist. I added most of them to the wulfenite article.

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:09:18 +0000

Rudolf,
I particularly like the one with the hemimorphite.
Rock

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Sun, 06 May 2012 22:13:04 +0000

I think I will contact Josef Kirchler in Southern Tyrol. He has some of the world's best Titanite specimens in his museum. If he lets me take photographs of them that would be a good start for the article.
But now back to the Wulfenites. I have put in larger images in my article about Bad Bleiberg as you suggested and I am quite happy with it.
I also have taken photographs of some very good Wulfenites of the Prasnik collection that might be of interest for your project. The ID s are: 463767, 463762, 463284, 463249.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Sun, 06 May 2012 16:28:19 +0000

OK, let me know when you want to start and Ill open a Titanite thread for us. If the work suits you and you like the results, after you finish a couple of them, Ill make you a moderator and you will be able to edit all existing Best Mineral articles and open Best Mineral thready yourself.

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:05:26 +0000

Rock,
Thanks a lot for all the information and help you are giving me. There are so many special words that one cannot find in a dictionary. The first thing I will do now is to correct the wrong ones.
I can imagine now that with your help I might be able to write a Best Mineral article. I am thinking of the wonderful mineral Titanite. So in case that you agree I would start with it in October this year as for the next months in summer I am awfully booked out.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Fri, 04 May 2012 10:18:20 +0000

Rudolf,
Most of the work in doing a Best Mineral article on Mindat is selecting the localities and the images from our half million image gallery and the links to the best images of the best specimens and putting them in the article, reversing the locality strings and bringing the images into the article and adjusting the sizes so that they all look nice. After that you write as much as you know about the species and the localities, which I depressingly find is usually not very much. Also as you are doing this work, others will chip in with good information, corrections and advice. Sometimes this can help a lot. If you decide you want to do one, I can give you advice on how to save a lot of time in doing all the grunt work needed. But enough about that.

Not all of your images appear dark and some of them I didn't realize were dark till I minimized the shadowed areas using Photoshop and could see the improvement. Why make people click on them to see the larger pictures. Some don't even know how to click on the image and others have slow internet connections and must wait a long time for the large picture to appear. Why not just put in larger images to start with. The larger pictures also permit larger captions to be used.

You say "I was allowed by the Mine Directory to accompany a pit foreman in order to inspect the Wulfenite cleft hoping to find some more. But having only a few minutes at my disposal this wish did not come true." What year was this? You say you went with the pit foreman. Were they mining from an open pit mine at that time and you went into an open pit, or did you go into the underground mine. If you went underground you might say you went with a mine foreman, or a shift boss.

You say "The friendly pit foreman then showed me several empty clefts" Here in the west the think of clefts as alpine clefts. In the mines in Arizona the wulfenite is usually found in veins and you work the veins till they open out into pockets where there is space for the wulfenite and other minerals to grow. In Iran I visited a lead mine and in it saw what might be described as a cleft full of cerussite crystals with micro Wulfenites if you looked carefully. It looked like the earth had moved and a crack had been opened, up to perhaps a foot wide in places and covering the floor and ceiling of the "cleft" were TN size clusters of shiny cerussite crystals running back up as far as my light could reach. I wish I had spent more time collecting there.

You say "When working started at the ore deposits on the 13th level of Mine Stefanie. What year was this?

How does "Herbertschachtscholle" translate? Does "Hundertmetervererzung" translate at the hundred meter level?

mineral collector family. Was this your family or those collectors who were interested in specimens from the mine?

"Then several clefts containing a great variety of Wulfenite habits and colors were found. Most specimens had the paragenesis of Wulfenite and Hemimorphite. Strangely none of the Wulfenites from the 13th level Konradi ore deposit looked similar to those of the 12th level. The two most significant finds were the huge cleft with the green Wulfenites and the Hemimorphite pocket with crystals measuring up to 2,5cm." Are we still in the same mine? How large was the cleft/pocket?

"A single find remained the 2,5cm measuring Anglesite crystal." A single pocket... where was the pocket,what mine/level?

"One of the very last recovered specimens was this lovely one with almost reddish Wulfenite crystals in a beautiful paragenesis with Hemimorphite and Hydrozincite.". Where was this? Mine/level?

"Mineral collectors are still searching successfully the numerous slag heaps for micro mounts." Usually mineral collectors find their micros on the mine dumps where the waste rock from the mine are piles. Slag is something that has been heated to a molten state in refineries and becomes solid when it cools. There are often not much in the way of crystals in it unless it has had a chance to we weathered or immersed in sea water.

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:53:19 +0000

Rock,
First of all I have to thank you. You really helped me a lot with working at computers. I do know already how to make images larger. I did that with the last picture in my article. I just did not use this possibility with the other images as I noticed that the quality of the images is better when you click them on. That is why I left the small pictures.
I moved to Bad Bleiberg in 1975 when I started working as a teacher there and I am still living at this nice village. I met Herbert Stichauner the first time in 1980.
The pictures are not dark at all on my computer. I will have a look at them at one of my friend's computers. If they appear darker there I will lighten them up and upload them again.
I think I almost would have confidence enough as you say to do an article in Best Minerals. But there is this problem that I am little bit shortsighted with minerals. I think I know a lot about Wulfenites and minerals of Bad Bleiberg and the alpine section of Carinthia but if I had to write a Best Minerals article I simply do not have the knowledge about other localities to write a good article.
Thanks a lot.

Rudolf

Re: Wulfenite

Rock Currier — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:51:21 +0000

Rudolph,
May I ask you a few questions? You say "After 5 years at Bleiberg there was not even one Wulfenite crystal in my collection". Did you actually live in Bleiberg? If so, what year did you move there? So in what year did you meet Herbert Stichauner?

I have edited the first paragraph a little and enlarged the picture and the caption below it. If you click on the edit button below you article you can take a look at the code string that I modified and I think you will be able to figure out how to make the other images as large as you wish.

I did not want to do any more editing till you have had a chance to answer the questions above and you had a chance to read the changes I made and understand a little better how the code string for inserting images works.

I might also observe that some of your pictures are pretty dark on my computer, and I would be curious if you thought they were dark on yours as well? The first image is fine. If some of the others appear dark, you might lighten the dark ones up in a program like photoshop, and then just replace the current image in the Mindat database with a lighter one with less shadows. If you need help with this, let me know.

I think with a little more editing and a better sizing and arrangement of the images, the article will be more to your liking.

Editing articles and the images in these article construction fields is very much like what we are doing in the Best Minerals articles. After you finish fixing your Wulfenite article you may have confidence enough to do an article in Best Minerals.

Re: Wulfenite

Rudolf Hasler — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:56:57 +0000

Rock,
Yes. I will be very grateful if you are so kind to edit it.

Rudolf