Only from Canada, eh?

Thanks for the location note Rod. Are they all from one spot; one find?

Cheers,
Michael

Hi Michael,

The gypsum crystals were originally found while doing gas-line work south of Chain Lakes and crossing Willow Creek. More were found with the upgrade of Highway 22--that's where we came in, providing a little impromptu geological advice in return for some hoe time. Then, being bears for punishment, we made a deal with the adjacent rancher and dug him a dug-out for his cattle. It is this last venture that produced the volume of crystals currently on the market. If one is really motivated, one can dig in the ditch along the highway--trust me, this is hard work.

There is another gypsum locality near Hines Creek, Alberta. They are somewhat similar but usually have more twinning and clay inclusions.

Cheers,
Rod

Thanks Rod! I don't know where Nancet Creek came from. I always assumed there were a number of spots over an area that had produced these things, so even though I know most are labeled Willow Creek, I never questioned the locality.

Hematoid Amethyst from Thunder Bay Ontario. About 140 mm.

Very Canadian. Small 25 mm group of Grossular Garnet Crystals, self collected sometime between1986 and 1989. I had few very productive visits to the Asbestos mines of Quebec during those years. In those years most of the Garnet specimens were collected in fine gravel like talus seeping out of contact fractures in (Granite ?). On one occasion during a torrential rain downpour I had a hardhat full of loose one to two cm specimens, all in pristine condition. For more of this see my Grossular pictures;
[www.mindat.org]

Thanks for posting your photos, Jonathan - I would dearly love to have a chance to visit Jeffrey!


Maggie

Hi Maggie. To visit Jeffrey you have to contact the club in Asbestos.
[www.bobeggs.ca].

Here I add two more from Canada only specimens; Two pretty Thomsonite specimens from LAB mine Black Lake Quebec. Not the best pictures, I will try to do better next time.

It would be unfair if I didn't show you this, Last year some miners at the Niobec mine in St-Honore, Quebec had a lucky strike. So here is a picture of Barite Fluorite Combo unlike any other found before. This may not be better than the older stuff but they are really different and pretty. Larger group is 120 by 110 mm and second one is 90 x 60 mm.

Have all of you folks north of the border gone into hibernation? Perhaps you are recovering from all of the vitamin D that you soaked up in Tucson.

Here is a tremolite, etched from calcite, from Norland, Ontario. I traded it from an Indiana collector named Kim Greeman in 1966. He got it at the Bancroft swap in 1963. Overall 7.5x6x1.5 cm




Reverse of same specimen

Cheers!

Steve



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2012 10:41PM by Stephen Rose.

thanks for sharing Steve, it is a nice one from before I even started collecting.

Thanks back at you, Jonathan. You continue to post great pictures of great specimens!

Here are 3 of my Canadian minerals

Lazurite and Quartz and possibly Wardite, Blow river area, Yukon territory

Weloganite, Francon Quarry, Montreal, Quebec

Serandite, Mont Saint-Hilaire, Rouville RCM, Montérégie, Québec

Here is one of my self collected Vesuvianite Thumbnails. There was lots of Vesuvianite collected over the years, however most of it had some damage and emerald green and deep purple are hard to find in good shape. This one is lighter in color and not as rare as darker specimens.

RE:Espanola cobaltites.

1972 preceeds my first time there by one year. The specimen that Steve has might have been collected on a field trip of the Barrie Mineralogical Association in the late 60's or possibly 1970-71. I first saw this material with Bill Christianson but my memory doesn't give accurate dates that long ago. The largest crystal that we collected measures 2 x 1.9 x 1.4 cm.

Cheers,
Rod

Hi all,

Just saw the realgar specimen posted by Maggie Wilson on December 17th, 2011...

When I heard of this discovery (end of the eighties, if I recall well), my partner and I rushed to the quarry to check if any material was left. We were full of hope, and very excited, as one can imagine !

Unfortunately, considering the horrific name "arsenic" attached to this mineral, the scared owners quickly had this very limited area of the quarry being completely covered with tons of rocks, as they feared a reaction from environmentally-conscious locals !

Chances of finding similar material would be very, very scarce.

Sigh.

JYL

Cross posted from Gail's New Favorite of The Day. Fluorite on Quartz on Fluorite from the Rock Candy Mine.
10.6 x 9.2 cm.

© A&M

Hi folks - great to see the recent (and not so recent!) entries - I have been lax in keeping up my end of the job! I could use Stephen's hibernation excuse, I suppose. But not for much longer - saw my first Robin yesterday, on our way home from the Peterborough show - BOTH signs of spring!

And Stephen - lovely, nice large tremolite specimen - not unlike the newer material that has surfaced near Minden - brought out by Michael Bainbridge and George Thompson. George had some at the Peterborough show this weekend. Speaking of which, it was good to see you at the show on the weekend, Johnathan - hope it was a good event for you?

Jason - those are some great Canadians - lovely colour on the Yukon material as well as the serandite - thanks!

Rod - I see your name just about everywhere on labels - thanks for adding to the thread!

Jean-Yves - THANK you for your contribution to the realgar story - happy for the confirmation.

And AM... what can I say? I've exhausted my superlatives... I truly appreciate your work and generosity - wonderful specimen, thank you!

Rute 55 between Drumondville and Sherbrooke Quebec had some interesting Alpine cleft cavities that produced lots of Quartz clusters, faden Quartz, Tabular Quartz and many Chamosite included phantoms. Beside this there was many interesting Albite specimens as well as Number of beautiful Anatase specimens and occasional Adularia and Fluorapatite.
So here are few of this.

My camera is unable to photograph the spherical orange hematite, and square golden (pyrite?) inclusions floating next to each other inside some of the amethyst crystals from the Blue Points Mines [www.mindat.org] You'll just have to use your imagination for now .... they are really interesting! So far no one has posted a macro image of these tiny inclusion on Mindat. This photo by Bill Morgenstern is just awsome.:


I'll gladly send someone a specimen with these inclusions if they will then post a macro photo here at Mindat. It will take an approximately 30X magnification to peer into the crystal faces and photo them. I can see them pretty well with a loop.

Just for FUN I have made a youtube playlist of some Only from Canada tunes:
[www.youtube.com]
I have spent many hours listening to the radio driving big trucks across beautiful Canada. Enjoy eh!

Hi Maggie,

I'm not sure if you are looking for just recently acquired specimens but I thought our viewers might like to see a specimen that dates from the early part of the 20th century (circa 1910-1920). The attached specimen photo (by Mark Mauthner) of proustite, xanthoconite and acanthite is from the Castle Mine, Gowganda, Haultain Twp., Temiskaming District, Ontario. It was first part of the National Museum as NMC #015591, then later went to the Geological Survey as GSC #13951 and in July of 1986 it was acquired through an exchange by Rob Woodside. I acquired it through an exchange involving both R.W. the ROM and myself in Jan. 2005. Note the color of the proustite xtls is still fresh even after all the time it has been out of the mine. Specimen dimensions are 6.0 X 4.0 X 3.0 cm. The xanthoconite crystals are hard to pick out in this photo so I will post an enlarged view at a later date.
.

John Dagenais



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2012 09:07PM by John Dagenais.