Favorite Self-Collected Specimens

Here is a galkhaite specimen I collected while I worked at the Getchell mine in Nevada. It is a favorite because there are so many crystals packed into one small piece, and the color and luster are good. It is the best I found while there. The pocket was not much bigger than this and the opposite sides of it had very few crystals. Also, it was from a part of the mine that had never had much of this. It was the first, best, and almost only piece I found in that area of the mine. From the 194-4850D level.

Found several years ago at one of my aragonite sites in Monroe County Indiana is this 9 cm x 4.5 cm geode showing numerous spiky aragonite needles on quartz and decomposing ferroan dolomite/ankerite (old limonite terminology). Virtually all the aragonite geodes at this site are associated with varying amounts decomposing ferroan dolomite.

A suite of self collected Quartzes from central Australia (found between 2009 and 2011), and an odd gemmy Beryl from a classic Australian locale.
Further details in each photo.
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A nice Christmas gift found on Christmas day 2011 at Baimashan tunnel construction site in Fujian Province in China: a 3 cm calcite in a quartz vug, and nice fluorite octahedrons with pyrite and a 2nd generation.

adriaan, It looks likes slag glass.

I moved the message from Adriaan, asking for ID help, to the proper identification help board here: [www.mindat.org] (I did that yesterday evening, but apparently I didn't see the message was posted twice.....)

One of my favourite self-collected micros; linarite from Ballyhighland Mine in County Wexford. What it lacks in size (group about 3mm), it makes up for in lustre and colour.
This was the last thing I found on the site in the final light of day. Isn't that often the way?

Richard

CELESTINE, Lime City Quarry, Lime City, Ohio. Many quarries in the Findlay Arch region of Northwest Ohio produce fine collectible Celestine. Probably the best known location is the White Rock Quarry in Clay Center, Ohio. Fluorite often accompanies the celestine in some of these quarries. The Lime City Quarry, however, produces a differing habit of crystals than most of the other regional quarries and fluorite is rarely, if ever found there. This isolated blocky 6.0 cm x 3.5 cm pale milky blue double terminated crystal on dolostone matrix (with scattered fossil voids) was collected in August 2008. Shortly thereafter the quarry operations were terminated and the quarry was allowed to flood. This locality, long a favorite of regional midwest mineral collectors, may now be extinct.

Thanks Harjo and everyone's pictures and stories are most enjoyable!

Should have been a private message. Sorry.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2012 08:38PM by Bill Boehm.

One of my favorite self collected Serandite from the large 1988 pocket. it is solid unaltered all around terminated floater 60 mm long. Hope that I am not the only one impressed.
Thanks for looking!

You're not alone, Jonathan. Very nice indeed!! --Ken

This is a matrix smoky quartz-microcline combination I found in the first major pocket at the Foolhen #2 pegmatite, Goldflint Mountain, Jefferson County, Montana. it is a cool example of what graphic granite looks like when it grows into a pocket opening.


William C. (CHRIS) van Laer: "I'm using the chicken to measure it..."

Thanks for sharing William, really nice.

Here is an ilmenite crystal with epimorphic rutile that perfectly preserves the original ilmenite crystals faces. Found in one of the few open alpine cleft pockets we ever found. The rutile is brown, the ilmenite is black where the rutile pulled away when enclosing calcite broke away. The FOV is 22mm wide, and the crystal is about 0.7-1.3mm thick. It is the sharpest ilmenite we ever found.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2012 03:28AM by Keith Wood.

Beautiful linarite. That has to be the most perfect hue of blue of any mineral.

Back in 2000, Czech republic, Kozakov mountain, we spend the day in quarry and found this 60cm vug with amethyst, quartz and calcite. That's my daughter Chantal posing with our find.
I still have about 6 pieces of that find in my collection.I don't know if the quarry is still open for collecting, it was a fee based thing back then.
[www.cesky-raj.info]

Ed

35 years ago, I found in Sardinia these micros:
[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]
[www.mindat.org]

Despite a very mild winter with little significant freeze/thaw activity here in South Central Indiana this winter, collecting at the Harrodsburg road cuts (see "Nature's Thread" for pix) has been quite good for me. This geode with very lustrous and strongly color zoned yellow barite was found in November 2011. The geode measures about 12 cm x 9.5 cm and the barite is about 3.3 cm x 3.0 cm. In the coming days and weeks, I hope to post pix and descriptions of other recently found Harrodsburg Indiana geodes.

Here are norbergite crystals in limestone matrix. Limecrest quarry, Sparta N.J - Regards - Brad. .