Only from Canada, eh?

What a lovely piece!!! Has it been analysed? If it was Dawsonite it would be the world's finest.

I'll say this about you Canadians: you're not only considerate but also attentive and supportive. 15 pages on a non-controversial topic! Wow!! If I had any specimens worthy of inclusion, I would send photos in a heartbeat. Oh well, I suppose that admiring all of these specimens will have to be my consolation prize.

Hi Rob - glad you like! The weloganite has not been analysed - Reiner acquired it from Frank Melanson some years ago.

Bill Lechner spoke at our club last year about Francon - and mentioned that there is an assortment of habits for this mineral - there are no other photos like it here on Mindat (none that I could find, that is) , so I thought I'd share.

Don - thanks for your kind words - I'm grinning ear-to-ear! :)

That Weloganite is very impressive. That is one of the common habits found in the earlier years while quarry was in operation.

Thanks Jonathan

Here is purportedly the 4th best Broken Hammer Sperrylite recovered so far:



I say "purportedly" as this one narrowly escaped export application which was done for the three "best". They were 1 cm on cube edge and this is a tad smaller, but over 1 cm on the diagonal. Looking at the 3 "best", it seems that size was the major deciding factor. The one Rod posted earlier had the least damage of the three "best" and yes it is a better Sperrylite than this one. But this one is not in Sulfide matrix. It is really funny to hear people's tortuous explanations as to why their specimen is the best.

Glad to see that you have claimed one of those Broken Hammer Sperrylites, Rob. Very cool.

Speaking of cool, it's anything but cool here in southwestern Ontario - we are in the middle of nasty heatwave - to avoid the heat, Reiner has been collecting in the basement and the garage - he found this sample of pharmacolite on some of the material he retrieved from the Nippissing 404 last year. A new species, we believe, for Ontario!

Here is a little different geology folks. This was my finds fro a few weeks ago at the route 73 excavation in Saint Joseph de Beauce.
There was quartz viens in the sand stones and schists of the cambrian Rosaire formation. Some pyrite cubes, but around 5mm were seen.
But some quartz veins were exposed with nice clear xls. Calcite and not many other minerals seen. but I am glad I got to some of these before they were draged away and buried forever. I have seen bigger xls futher south on Rt73 but they are under the landscaping now.

Nicely done, Fred! Thanks for your post.

Before I took up mineral collecting, the need for slowing down to drive through summer road works projects was something to be endured with not a little impatience. Now I look forward to seeing what might be glinting on freshly exposed surfaces!

Here is an "ugly" black Canadian rock I recently photographed: Ilmenite, Madawaska Mine Property (Bentely Lake Occurrence), Faraday Township, Hastings Co., Ontario, Canada, 3 x 5 cm. The crystals have a metallic black luster. The largest crystal measures 4 cm. across, and has a distinct curve.

Hi Terry! I am crazy about those ilmenite crystals from Faraday ever since I saw a display of George Thompson's at the Peterborough show a few years back - that's a neat little pedestal and a nice photo - thanks for the post!

I'm finishing the first pass through the thumbnail collection - up to the "zeds" as we say ici au Canada.

I'd like to share these two zircon specimens from the J.G. Gole Quarry - the first is a sharp crystal in weathered apatite that is shattered by radiation fractures.


The second radiates something else, in my mind - the growth patterns on the crystal faces put me in mind of an ancient being... old beyond the ages - which is fitting given that zircon is the Methuselah of mineral species.

Hey Maggie,

Those are zertainly zelightful zpezimenz! Particularly interesting patterns on the second one.
And Terry, there is nothing ill about those ilmenites! They are fabulous.

Since Maggie came to the end of the alphabet, I thought I would start at the beginning, afterall practice makes perfect with mineral ABCs!

It seems we are soon to lose Marmora as a collecting site as the mine owners prepare to flood the mine.
Here is an ode to Marmora and those reliable garnets we all will miss seeing coming out evermore.

Andradite
Marmoraton Mine, Marmora Township, Hastings Co., Ontario, Canada
approx 4.5cm x 3.5cm







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2012 03:16AM by Stephanie Martin.

A while back John Truax was hoping someone could take a photo of the cubic pyrite inclusions in Thunder Bay Amethyst.

I obtained a specimen from John and with a bit of persistence I managed to capture a glimpse of the glinty little things. Now this specimens really needs a good microscope photo but this is the best I could do with my lil' ol' point and shoot.

There in the plasma in the main point with all those red and black blobs is a shiny little cube and an incomplete partner. There are also other partial cubes elsewhere but sometimes it is difficult to tell pyrite from reflections. But they are definitely there. I don't have a measurement for them but my guess is that they under a millimeter.



whole specimen is 22mm x 12mm

1- Loooove that ilmenite specimen. Those puppies are seldom aesthetic. Very, very nice photo!

2- Stephanie, we haven't seen the end of Marmora yet. The minerals came from the truly massive, mountain-like dumps, not the pit, which has been flooded for decades. IF the power project goes thru, we may indeed lose access to the dumps, but it's not a huge blow as access was tightly limited anyways. I'm hoping that the Walker club or the CCFMS will successfully negotiate with the power company for future collecting access. If they intend to do anything with the massive dumps, it could become a paradise for collectors... even as it is, there's literally tons of nice garnets just lying around all over the place.

3- T-Bay amethyst definitely needs some attention by a skilled inclusion photomicrographer. I've got dozens of pieces set aside for their inclusions, one could get tens of images that would be truly superb, given the skills and equipment.

Thanks to all that are posting, gotta love the Kanuckistan rock photos when it's 35 degrees and field collecting is on hold till Sept.

Tim Jokela Jr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks to all that are posting, gotta love the
> Kanuckistan rock photos when it's 35 degrees and
> field collecting is on hold till Sept.


Well, Tim, you might remember this little fella from one of your forays to the cabbing machine to escape the heat (or was it to escape the blizzard?)

Reiner collected the agate on the eastern shore of Lake Superior in 2008 - Tim created this little masterpiece - with our thanks! [www.mindat.org]

Suolunite from Lac D'Amiante mine, Black Lake, Quebec.
This is a 17 cm high piece. Third of the biggest specimens I have.

this one became several smaller pieces.

There was some talk about the Titanite from Maniwaki area, Quebec and I remembered that there are couple of this in my collection, from the Year 2000. This is a 50 mm specimen of very interesting morphology.

Very pale green fluorite on baryte.
Rogers Mine, Huntingdon Township, Madoc Area, Hastings Co., Ontario. 5.4 x 4.4 cm.

© A&M

Keep those Canadian specimens coming! They are great to see. Thanks all for posting.

AM - Exquisite photo as always.

I was going through stuff selecting candidates for my soon to be ugly minerals thread and decided this one would qualify. After seeing how the photo turned out I decided instead that it belonged here, on the Canadian minerals thread as the photo seemed to bring out its "personality". Definitely doesn't compare to AM's piece and others, but nevertheless I stand by my decision. Obtained from Kerry Day.

Allanite coating KSpar
Hiway 18 Roadcut
Haliburton Co., Ontario

Well! I've been negligent! I have excuses... does that count?

One of the excuses was the Bancroft Gemboree last week. A side note first, as regards the event. Reports from dealers was mixed - one friend said it was the worst Gemboree for him ever (and he's been in the game for decades) and yet others reported better than expected business. I suppose that's what it boils down to, doesn't it? Expectations. The weather certainly played a part - if not scorching hot, there were several cloudbursts that flooded the outdoor swap area and the parking lots. Challenging to be sure!

Reiner and I attended the last day and we found many nice specimens and checked off a couple or three blanks in the species list. But here's my favourite that fills the Canadian Content requirements for this thread - not so much the species, but the locality. And the colour!


Halite
Locality: Les Mines Seleine (Seleine mine), Grosse Île, Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine TE, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Québec, Canada
5.0 x 5.0 x 3.0 cm

I have another to show you, but you will need to navigate over to Stephanie's UBI thread...