Favorite Self-Collected Specimens

NT



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2011 01:27AM by Matt Ciranni.

The best known aragonite site in Monroe county Indiana is a short road cut North of Bloomington on IN 37. But over the past 20+ years I have found several other similar sites. The geodes at all these sites are, in many ways, similar with a sandy siltstone type matrix and association with corroding ferroan dolomites/ankerite (old limonite terminology). This 15 cm x 12 cm geode has several sprays of aragonite and also diffuse coatings on the quartz crystals in addition to the decaying ferroan dolomite. Found in July of this year.

As I mentioned in my previous barite blog (with attached specimen), Indiana geode barites can be delicate or stout crystals. This barite is a stout blade measuring 5.7 cm x 2.8 cm. It is centrally nestled in the back of a 8 cm hi x 11 cm wide geode. The top of the barite termination just contacts the quartz on the "top" back wall of the geode. There also is a small secondary barite in the lower right of this photo. This specimen was found in March of 2010 at the Harrodsburg road cuts in Monroe county, Indiana.

Collected in 2009 from a newly found very small site on a stream bend with hi bank walls on private land just inside Washington County, Indiana, this very large geode contains mounds of pristine aragonite on very fresh quartz. The geode measures about 20cm x 15cm and you can see how large it is by my hands on its edges. It was a stunner to all who saw it. One hi end dealer suggests sacrificing the geode and just making a cabinet size aragonite on quartz specimen, but I will keep the geode intact, at least for now. A few smaller similar examples were also found as was a selenite (var of gypsum) geode. Not much found there since that find.

CHEERS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL !!!!!!!!!!!

Bob, let me be the first to say WOW!

I collected these two specimen in Sardinia 20 years ago.
[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]

Stellerite from Vulcan Materials Quarry in Manassas, Virginia, collected 2010 I believe.
301580

Now that's what I call a geode!

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Here is Casper's stellerite -

The Indiana geodes of the IN 56 road cuts in Washington County are quite distinctive and colorful. While one stratum is the usual quartz geodes, usually with abundant dolomite, most other layers show little recognizable quartz and an over abundance of yellowish thru orange to brick red dolomite upon which very pretty modified rhombs of calcite occur. This 13 x 11.5 cm geode contains several pristine calcites, the largest of which measures about 6.0 x 4.5 cm. It was collected in 2008.

Fluorite with galena on quartz, Rat Tail Pocket, Rogerley Mine, Weardale, England. 17 cm across. Pulled this one out of the mud myself on May 23, 2010. Specimens like this are rare from the mine because the quartz crust usually crumbles to bits. Got lucky with this one!

Smoky quartz from famous czech pegmatite locality Dolni Bory. I found a big pocket in old mine in 2008. Size 25 x 17 cm, 5kg

Very nice barite, Bob. I agree; I don't recall seeing any better geode barites from the US than those found in Southern Indiana.

Fluorapatite on albite from the Tip Top Mine, west of Custer, Custer County, South Dakota. Crystal is 4x3x3 mm. Collected in about 1969. Phosphate collecting at this pegmatite was very productive at times, particularly in the winter when new areas on the walls were accessible as the flooded pit was thickly frozen.



Cheers!

Steve

This is one of my favorites, chrysocolla and quartz.

Self collected in Sardinia.

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

Been a while since I've posted here. Below is a Lake Superior Agate I collected several years ago off a beach on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan. The specimen measures 4.5 cm. across:

Pyromorphite, Bunker Hill mine, Idaho. Despite the damage, I love the different habits on the piece. Collected July, 1998. Collecting trip was a birthday present from the late Bob Hopper, mine owner.

Self collected in Sardinia
[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]

I spent the summer of 1960 in Houghton, MI. My father was taking a course at Michigan Tech. I found a few small pieces of copper on the Isle Royal Mine dumps in Houghton, but I really wanted a big piece. Someone told us that the dumps of the Baltic #2 mine in South Range were being bulldozed for road fill. We went there, and that is where I found this piece. At age 12 this was an amazing find.

This is a small but very symmetrical millerite spray nestled in very fresh quartz. The combo finding is unusual in that many millerite-quartz combos have some coatings or are not so pristine. It looks much better in person as geodes, being concave or "cavity-like" are hard to photograph. The geode measured about 10 x 10 cm and the spray measured about 1.1 cm. Found in 2010 at the southeast Harrodsburg road cut, Monroe County, Indiana