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Identity HelpCan anyone put a locality on this specimen of sandstone?`

10th Jul 2014 22:30 UTCRock Currier Expert

01743170016041831898134.jpg
Here is a 20cm+ slab of attractive sandstone. Can anyone put a locality on it?


10th Jul 2014 22:40 UTCGary Weinstein

Rock,

It has a similar appearance to "print stone" an ocher infused siliceous siltstone from Brockman Station, 70 km NW of Tom Price, Australia.

Hope this helps,

Gary

11th Jul 2014 00:40 UTCRock Currier Expert

Gary,

Thanks, thats' in Western Australia, right? Perhaps some other Australians like Ralph can confirm that. We don't seem to have that locality listed here on mindat, nor any examples of Print Stone. Does anyone here have any examples or photos of print stone from this locality that they could share with us? Pictures of Australian print stone on the net show a strong resemblance to the polished slab above. Ralph, are you there? Perhaps our Australian expert can confirm and tell us more about the material.

11th Jul 2014 04:12 UTCJohn Truax

Hi Rock


Check out this link: http://outbackmining.com/printstone.htm


A google image search for printstone shows many similar looking rocks.


JT

11th Jul 2014 08:47 UTCErik Vercammen Expert

It looks like the Australian fossiel kinneyia simulans, a very old stromatolite.

11th Jul 2014 13:02 UTCRock Currier Expert

John,

I think that pretty much nails it down. I have uploaded it as an example and created a glossary entry for the stuff.

12th Jul 2014 00:48 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

It's not in Mindat, except the glossary, as its a variety of rock not a mineral. As its just a local commercial trade name I wonder if it should really be there too, isn't this meant just for scientific and technical terms? I guess most trade names for gems would be in Gemdat; until we get Rockdat up its always going to be a messy area. Anyway it's just another siltstone with liesegang banding and spotting, very closely related to zebra stone, ribbon stone, etc, there are a number of different varieties of this, mostly from around Kununarra, some listed in "Gemstones of WA" by Featherstone et al, 2013. It's not a stromatolite - note the irregular ferruginous banding in places.

12th Jul 2014 01:38 UTCRock Currier Expert

We only have a glossary entry for Printstone because I just put it in there last night. I feel that all rock types and lapidary materials should be represented here on Mindat, even if only in our glossary. When people come here searching for information, many, if not most of them don't even know the difference between a rock and a mineral let alone having heard about the IMA and correct nomenclature. It should be our job to teach them about this stuff. I for one, want to know about printstone and all the other stones as well, and I think its a shame that I have to go out on the net or to Wikipedia to find out about this stuff. Our descriptions of these non mineral but still mineral stuff should be at least as good as what is on Wikipedia and much better in telling where they come from and showing pictures of them. If at some time in the future Gemdat or Rockdat can do better than we can, at that point we can put links in our stuff to those sites.

12th Jul 2014 04:20 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

Mmmm The question Rock, is when do we start considering the name to be useful? It should be at least described in a a respectable publication. You can go to any stonemason or kitchen manufacturer and find any number of rocks with nice fanciful names designed just for marketting, as the Printstone is. Should we add them all? I could find a nice stone in my backyard, cut and polish it, call it "RalphStone" and put it on the stall at the next local Gem show. Should I enter that here too? I would prefer to wait to seen if a stone gets a decent write up somewhere, not just in an an sales listing.


I left the glossary item there for now, edited slightly, but thoughts are most welcome?

13th Jul 2014 09:32 UTCRock Currier Expert

Ralph,

I guess a name is useful if a bunch of people start using it. Is graphic granite a useful name? What about lapis or smoky topaz. I think we all agree that we should have a page or at least a glossary entry about those. We don't have an entry for smoky topaz, but I think we probably should if for no other reason that to explain to people that it is the same as smoky quartz and the name is often used by people trying to trade on a more valuable name. We should probably have a glossary entry for clean coal, which is a new name the coal industry is promulgating to try and take some of the stigma away from the pollution that coal causes. Ralph stone, well you know that is kind of catchy. Can you post some pictures of it?


One way to know if we should have a page or a glossary entry here on Mindat would be to capture search requests that produced no hits. With such a list we could decide weather to craft entries so that in the future a similar search would meet with success.

14th Jul 2014 14:17 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

Graphic granite is a bit different, it's been very well established in the literature for probably over 100yrs as a technical term for a very specific type of quartz-feldspar intergrowth, sometimes considered a rock name if abundant enough. I'm not sure, however, why it's listed as a "mineral" in Mindat though? We should probably move it to the glossary.


Lapis is historical, and well referenced; Smoky topaz is commonly used in gem books too, though it's best forgotten, like Azeztuleite etc. it becomes a problem when a name just comes from no-where, do they all get added? A while back someone discovered an altered gabbro in Tasmania polished up nicely so lapidarists started collecting and cutting some bits and putting them on sale at some local gems fairs labelled Brasseyite after a local hill. Should we add the name to Mindat? Personally I would wait until it gets written up in various publications, but I would be very interested in what others think?
 
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