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PhotosThorian Uraninite - Sherrer Quarry, C.K. Williams & Co. Quarry, Chestnut Hill, Easton, Forks Township, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania, USA

10th Mar 2016 17:28 UTCJeff Weissman Expert

Thorian Uraninite, Serpentine Subgroup

Sherrer Quarry, C.K. Williams Quarry complex, Chestnut Hill, Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, USA

I have seen this specimen subsequent to these images being posted. The "small, straight, brittle black or metallic hair like crystals in association" mentioned in the description are in fact some sort of hair or debris that got stuck to the surface. The "darkly colored reddish Thorogummite" is actually zircon. " black crystals of Thorian Uraninite" is correct, however.

10th Mar 2016 18:42 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

Jeff, I edited the photos. Please add Thorian Uraninite to this locality.

10th Mar 2016 19:36 UTCJeff Weissman Expert

Thanks Rob, added wolsendorfite and thorogummite as well. Note that the Montgomery paper does not distinguish between the main locality (CK Williams Q.) and the sublocality (Scherrer Q.)

10th Mar 2016 19:56 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

Thanks Jeff.

10th Mar 2016 21:58 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

Yes but what happened to the locality hierarchy here? It's a disaster, with multiple listings of the same, both in and out of standard hierarchal format. (Opp, my mistake, I cleared the cache and looks better, thanks) Easton could still use the Schweyer Quarry, Buskill Gap pyrite occurrence, Anthony's Nose and Chrin's quarry added, but the format looks good. (Forks twp. is still out of sync). Some how all my specimen have been re-located to the old lower Scherrer quarry rather than the encompassing C.K. Williams quarry, which assumed the old lower workings as well the upper verdolite quarry (needs to be fixed). Only much older vintage specimens which are labeled as coming from these old working should be noted as such.

These various quarries, whether separate or overtaken by the newer/ larger C.K. Williams quarry, are in the same geological deposit, they really ought to all be placed under this newly developed "complex" hierarchy (thanks).

Anyway, it is a particularly nice specimen. These xtls are most commonly found within serpentine, and are often cleaved while collecting. Rarely do they occur in the serpentized pholgoptite where it is easer to extract them in tact, as in this sample.

Thorian Uraninite in "Eastonite" (C.K. Williams, Easton, PA ) large intact xtls to 1/2 inch. 4 3/4" by 3" by 1 1/2"

10th Mar 2016 22:37 UTCJeff Weissman Expert

Mark - serpentinized phlogopite = "eastonite", I'll have to remember that (tu)

10th Mar 2016 22:53 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

Yes, been waiting a long time for them to "own up" to the reality of it. Anyway, the old Sherrer quarry really should be a sub-locality to CK Williams, not the other way around. There is an excellent article by Jay Liniger in MATRIX magazine, summer 2000, which sorts all this out, if you have or can grab a copy.

MRH

10th Mar 2016 23:14 UTCJeff Weissman Expert

Some more clearing of the Cache has cleaned this up a bit more - but calling a single quarry a "complex" is a bit overkill. The older Verdolite and Sherrer quarries were exhumed by the WIlliams quarry. I guess its semantics.

I had removed the map coordinates given for the Verdolite quarry, as they were wrong, and now they are back. Coordinates for Verdolite quarry is redundant, as they are exactly that for the WIlliams Quarry - will fix again...

Gordon (1929) gives the Verdolite quarry as being on River Road, 1 mile north of Easton - exactly the location of CK Williams Quarry "complex", it is not up the hill some ways away from the Delaware river, as they are one and the same.

11th Mar 2016 01:44 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

The C.K. Williams quarry, with the two older split as sub-localities would be better, but as I recall there were additional working of this deposit on Chestnut Hill too, so maybe just having Chestnut Hill as a super position in the heirarchy could keep them all together (I had intended to sort this area all out, but never did get around to it). I have a map of the area with the various working marked out, I'll see if I can find it scan it and post a copy here.

I will instead see if I can find better reference in order to add the various lesser known localities in the Easton area, and fit them in appropriately.

Thanks Jeff

MRH

11th Mar 2016 03:14 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

Here is a map with general locations of the various regional cuts prospects and workings as of 1906.

12th Mar 2016 01:08 UTCLouis Zulli

Jeff Weissman Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I had removed the map coordinates given for the

> Verdolite quarry, as they were wrong, and now they

> are back. Coordinates for Verdolite quarry is

> redundant, as they are exactly that for the

> WIlliams Quarry - will fix again...

>

The current coordinates I see are 40° 43' 9'' North , 75° 11' 31'' West. These are not correct for the C.K. Williams Quarry Complex.

40°42'49.22"N 75°11'48.24"W instead.

12th Mar 2016 12:24 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

> 40°42'49.22"N 75°11'48.24"W instead.

Updated.

18th Mar 2016 23:58 UTCLászló Horváth Manager

Jeff,

Can I assume that you have full analysis on this to call it "thorian" (whatever that means). Can we not settle for the IMA recommendation (Bayliss et al. 2005 Can. Min 43, 1429) of "Th-rich" or "Th-bearing" if it is indeed Th-bearing?

19th Mar 2016 00:39 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Good point Laszlo.

19th Mar 2016 02:51 UTCJeff Weissman Expert

Laszlo, and Reiner. It's uraninite. Prefix's are just adjectives to add some additional info.

And the material was ID'd by Arthur Montgomery, eminent mineralogist and eventual owner of the locality.

19th Mar 2016 07:49 UTCJohan Kjellman Expert

Here is Montgomerys article:

http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM42/AM42_804.pdf

cheers

19th Mar 2016 10:40 UTCLouis Zulli

Also see the more recent article "Uranium Mineralization at Easton, Pennsylvania" by R. I. Grauch and K. R. Ludwig, which appears on pp. 14-16 of this publication.

19th Mar 2016 10:55 UTCLouis Zulli

Louis Zulli Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Also see the more recent article "Uranium

> Mineralization at Easton, Pennsylvania" by R. I.

> Grauch and K. R. Ludwig, which appears on pp.

> 14-16 of this publication.

"Quarry L" in the article by Grauch and Ludwig is "unnamed prospect 14" in the map from 1906 (from an article by Peck, I believe) posted by Mark above. This location is distinct from the three locations discussed in Montgomery's article. The locations in Montgomery's article would be 1, 6 and point about halfway between 9 and 10 on the 1906 map above.

19th Mar 2016 23:47 UTCLászló Horváth Manager

How about just calling it uraninite and forget about the old, outdated adjectival modifiers, which mean absolutely nothing.

20th Mar 2016 00:21 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

I agree, László. As the quantity needed to permit use of the modifier isn't defined, and all uraninite probably contains a measurable amount of thorium, the adjectival modifier doesn't add much information.

20th Mar 2016 01:33 UTCJeff Weissman Expert

The high thorium content explains the association with thorogummite. Keeping the name as a variety helps in identification. Should be changed to "uraninite, var. thorian"

20th Mar 2016 02:21 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

If the Th content is significantly higher than average, I'd call it "Th-rich Uraninite" to indicate the unusual character. "Thorian" could apply to any uraninite. Although these adjectival terms are all too vague. Ideally we would have an analysis, and could then call it "Uraninite with x% Th" - That would at least no longer be fuzzy.

20th Mar 2016 16:02 UTCJohan Kjellman Expert

Alfredo Petrov Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> If the Th content is significantly higher than

> average, I'd call it "Th-rich Uraninite" to

> indicate the unusual character. "Thorian" could

> apply to any uraninite. Although these adjectival

> terms are all too vague. Ideally we would have an

> analysis, and could then call it "Uraninite with

> x% Th" - That would at least no longer be fuzzy.

Montgomery reports 15-35% ThO2 in these uraninites. Wether that's normal for uraninite or above average I don't know, but M calls it "high-thorian" so I suppose at least in 1955 that was thought to be above normal. I'd definitely mention it if I had a sample in our museum collection, if some researcher should be looking for a uraninite with "high" Th-content.

cheers

20th Mar 2016 18:06 UTCGary Moldovany

Please also note that Arthur Montgomery was trying to clear up a controversy between high-thorian uraninite and high uranoan thorianite. Thus the title of the paper "Three Occurences of High-Thorian Uraninite..." The consensus is still uraninite.

21st Mar 2016 03:52 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

I object to the idea that "Thorian" is "of no real value" for this particular local. A previous analysis of these crystals had identified them as Thorianite, the first observed occurrence of this mineral in the U.S.!

While Montgomery later found them to be simply high-thorian uraninite, and not uranoan thoriainite, the nature of it's Thoranian rich character was of primary interest even this analysis, and this characteristic ought to be represented for the occurrence at this locale. However it is employed, whether suffix, prefix, or what have you, I do believe describing these as simply Uraninite only served to obscure, both it's history, and primary interest of all previous record, reference and analysis.. My two cents.

As Gary notes, thorian-Uraninite does not preclude it from being properly identified as uraninite.

MRH

21st Mar 2016 03:54 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

I agree, Mark, but adding the actual %Th would sure clear up a lot of fuzziness.

21st Mar 2016 12:46 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

It is either uraninite or thorianite, and if it is that close to the uraninite-thorianite boundary there could be both there. However I would describe it is Uraninite ( thorium rich) rather than introduce another name which could be meaningless. Better yet would be to quantify the Th content by giving the quantitative formula ie. (U 0.6, Th 0.4) O2 . Sorry don't know how to format a formula it in Mindat.

21st Mar 2016 13:04 UTCGary Moldovany

Montgomery states that the Th values varied in many of the samples, one as high as 49% Th but most were much lower. According to "The Mineralogy of Pennsylvania", thorite, thorianite, thorogummite and uraninite were found at the site. They also name a number of uranium secondary minerals. Were the Th minerals mis-identified? By the way, I'm fine with "thorian uraninite" I have been labeling my specimens as such unless it's clearly a uranium secondary.

21st Mar 2016 13:55 UTCJeff Weissman Expert

Gary - the thorogummite is a fairly common product of the altered thorian-uraninite (aka uraninite aka thorium-rich uraninite aka uraninite with 0-49% ThO2 content aka...), thorite and thorianite are quite rare and are easily confused with uraninite and zircon, and will require careful analysis to confirm.

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