The No-Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I believe someone mentioned diadochite as an ugly possibility and I wholeheartedly agree. So here is my contribution to this thread - a diadochite from the Dexter #7, San Rafael Swell, Utah.

Michael Shaw

Jean, I might argue with you! Here's Norman King's Tellurantimony from Matagami which appears to qualify, but the next photo is Maggie's of the altaite containing the Tellurantimony from Mattagami and is almost pretty.



Perhaps someone might start a thread on invisible minerals

Uglies! I'm game :)
Then I throw-in a quick snapshot of my precious Borrowdale graphite (7x4x3cm massive)
One of the most beautiful specimens in my little collection, thanks to Kate....


Cheers! Frank

I'll bite, speaking of Franklin. I do have one ugly which I'm rather fond of as it contradicts the generally accepted description of this species.
Though not one of the specimens I acquired directly from John Cianciulli, it did come to me via the Franklin Mineral Museum.


Pyrite xtls on Franklin ore, with minor calcite and Willemite (Primary, not secondary or ex-solution). Very unusual!

For those of you who have a copy of Peter Dunns book, you may want to add a minor note to the Pyrite section which states pyrite associated primarily with the marbles, only occasionally within the ore body but not in direct association with it. Apparently direct association, albeit rare, does occur. Ah, geology . . . never say never. ;)


MRH

OK, I can’t stay out of this any longer. It was Rob’s posting of my tellurantimony from Matagami that made me come out of the closet. However, I will say that I was astounded at a specimen posted by Stephanie Martin when she began the thread. I also have a piece of rheniite, and mine is bigger than yours, Stephanie! It’s just that my photo is of a very small section where I was able to catch the reddish internal reflections. RHENIITE IS BEAUTIFUL! It’s beautiful because it is rhenium sulfide. What more needs to be said?

And if that wasn’t enough, Alfredo posted a rock specimen containing water-worn glauconite granules. Glauconite is actually a “trash-can” name (perfect kind of name for glauconite, huh, Alfredo?) for a group of minerals that may include true glauconite or may not. It is the sedimentologist’s key to a marine environment of deposition under circumstances where no other indicator is definitive. Therefore, who couldn’t love “glauconite?”

Further down the list, Rob posted a photos of rosickyite. But it’s just a hand specimen photo. A close-up would show very nice crystals of the mineral that would delight any crystal lover. And if that wasn’t insult enough to my sensibilities, Rob then showed a photo that I posted of tellurantimony from Matagami. Geez!–this is antimony telluride (DUH!)–how could anyone not love it?

You know what I am going to do? I am going to post photos of some of my mineral specimens that you all might think are NO-GOOD, BAD, or UGLY, but in fact are beautiful. They include argutite, coulsonite, rubicline. And you can’t say they are not beautiful, because they are invisible. They are in the space below. Check them out! (Actually, I did think about starting a thread on invisible minerals, but decided to post these here.)















I know each of the above specimens is beautiful. After all, argutite is germanium oxide (tiny indistinguishable crystalline inclusions in sphalerite). How many of you have germanium oxide? Couslonite is a an iron vanadate that forms micron-scale exsolution lamellae in magnetite. Think of it–exsolution lamellae! And rubicline is the rubidium analogue of microcline–it’s visually indistinguishable from the minerals surrounding it, but it’s a freakin’ rubidium mineral, folks! Do YOU have a mineral with Rb in the formula? WELL, DO YOU, PUNK?

(with apologies to Clint Eastwood, or should I say, Dirty Harry?).

Anyway, after excitedly obtaining each one of these (and many others), I lovingly labeled it and placed it in a space of honor in a special drawer. I open the drawers and admire them frequently, and every time each one brings a smile to my heart and soul.

Norman, I call those invisible species "theological minerals", because actual specimens in collections only exist for those collectors who have faith. But faith alone seems to be enough to make that saving check mark in their well-worn copy of Fleischer's.

Yes, Alfredo, but that's a whole different discussion.

Nevertheless, I know what you mean, from watching the sales pages and auction sites for specimens from Lookout Pass that, one or the other, reportedly include every thallium mineral reported from there, but they all appear to be identical to me. I fear that in the specimens I have and that I have personally collected at Lookout Pass, there are are not as many different minerals in them as has been reported. But I plan to run analyses to see what minerals are really in them. So, in that regard, this is not really faith, because faith, by definition, concerns tenets that are beyond checking scientifically. However, every specimen posted on mindat, for example, is at least in principle verifiable. So, IN PRINCIPLE, it is not accepted by fatih. It's just that it is simply impracticable for everyone to have an analysis run on even the relatively small number in their collections that are in question. If we were all rich and conscientious enough to do it, they could all be verified or disproved.

Yes, Norman, invisible minerals are a whole different discussion from ugly minerals (as presumably an invisible mineral can be neither beautiful nor ugly), but I wasn't the person who introduced invisible minerals into this discussion

I will argue one minor point with you: "Faith" not only "concerns tenets that are beyond checking scientifically", but also those beliefs that a person has no intention of checking or no ability to check, which would apply to most invisible minerals in collections.

But even though I frequently make fun of collectors who acquire invisible species, please keep on showing us the visible ugly species... I love them all, even Michael Shaw's dehydrated vomit, sorry, I meant the Dexter #7 diadochite

Yes,

And it was someone else who introduced the invisible mineral concept (but I like it).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2012 12:15AM by Norman King.

I wonder what percentage of all mineral species would qualify as invisible? That must be going up in leaps and bounds these days.

If you guys are buying those invisible specimens I sure hope you are paying with invisible money

As for posting photos of invisible minerals, well that does seem a little oxymoronic, or perhaps just moronic lol, but I can't blame you for trying to indulge us. Much ado about nothing.

I will apologize for the rheniite crystals but not the host. Unfortunately you have to take the good with the bad, and in this case the ugly matrix. No offense to Mr Eastwood. (I did put in an extra comma along with the No- in the thread title in hopes that I would not be deemed in copyright infringement, although I think they probably have bigger fish to fry).

Why is it that some of the uglies that I thought were uglies turn out much better in a photo than in hand? And some of the beauties turn out not so good? There's gotta be a law about that phenomenon somewhere...

Thanks to all for posting, keep up the good work!

stephanie

Augite and red Apatite
label indicates Lake Clear, Ontario
approx 6cm

I just traded rather heavily with the leader of un-beautiful minerals, Tony Nikischer for a small polished section which is declared to contain rubicline. He also sells beautiful minerals.

I sell electron microprobe reference materials and receive many requests for a rubidium reference material.

I made a soda glass melt mixed with rubidium sulfate. It is a beautiful aquamarine in color, but the rubidium concentration is low and variable.

Somewhere in my files is information about a synthetic rubidium bearing laser material.

Anyone have any suggestions for a water tolerant synthetic rubidium phase ???

Bart

Per Stepahnie's comments, unfortunately I am a sucker for a good photo. For those of us in this boat, we should consider that our payment for some drab mineral specmen actually includes the cost of that magical photo. Just remember to download the photo, too--you paid for it!

The most famous of invisible mineral dealers was the legendary mineralogist and mineral dealer the late Sid Williams of Douglas, Arizona.

He described many new species which he named after Aztec gods. He also dealt in "statistical" minerals.

His wonderful wife Betty made his polished sections even though she had deformed hands.

If Sid found a 30 micron kotulskite grain in a lump of gabbro from one of Betty's polished sections from the Keystone Mine (?) in Nevada he divided that lump into small thumbnails and sold those thumbnails as kotulskite or any number of other rare PGMs. His price was always around $15.00.

I have looked at several of his original polished sections and never found a single grain of the purported PGM minerals. But then Sid was a much better mineralogist than I am.

Back in those days I sold my polished sections of Stillwater PGM with a photo and an EDS spectrum. In those days I could grab $150 for the various rare PGMs.

He easily put me out of business in that arena.

Anyone want to buy a large thumbnail of PGM bearing Stillwater gabbro for $2.00 plus shipping? The PGM are there, but it takes about $100 of probe time to find them.

I don't want to die with my Stillwater waste rock piles in my sheds. Maybe it's my IRA, though.

Bart

Fun thread, tho I'll never bump into most of the species mentioned. My least favorite organism on the planet is thiobacillus ferroxidans, for its appetite for turning lovely pyrite into brown mush. Have many Spruce specimens somewhere between munched and dissolved. A particularly unattractive one here, supported by an otherwise nice quartz scepter.

Bob
Old photo, also ugly.

This is not really an invisible mineral. It’s just that you cannot see the difference between the halloysite-7Å and kaolinite, to say nothing of halloysite-7Å and halloysite-10Å. I posted this photo in the mindat gallery on January 13 of 2012, and it became the head photo because no one had previously posted a photo of halloysite-7Å. Paradoxically, this is one of the more common minerals on the face of the Earth. By that I mean at the Earth’s surface, because it forms in the weathering environment above the current level of the water table. It is mentioned (usually simply as “halloysite,” depending on date of publication) in literally hundreds of geological publications, usually concerning specific sites and concentrating on surficial geology and soils. Not only will this photo never make “Photo of the Day,” the mineral will also never make it into very many mineral collections. I won’t claim this one is beautiful, but it sure is an important mineral, scientifically. Maybe the right category for it would be “unappreciated minerals.” Maybe, like what you see in “Ugliest Dog in the World” contests, it takes a special (twisted?) collector to love it.

Stephanie glad to see you did this. I am amazed also that there are so many people that love the IBUs as much we do. I have to dig through my boxes and find some of the pyrite IBUs I dig around Dallas. Here is the one IBU I had most handy. It is a big 3.5lb. garnet. It is approximately 10cm across.

Norman, your photo is most welcome here, thanks for the background on that piece. I am now officially among the twisted.

Donald, that is a huge homely garnet, but I love it

Bob Jackson's photo reminded me of one of my own casualites of pyrite disease, in this instance it is the marcasite component that succumbed. These used to be nice samples of schalenblende, but not anymore. They now qualify as No-good, or just plain bad.

Stephanie, the Sphalerite is fine (for now), so just remove the marcasite crud and you'll have two nice specimens

Depending on the locality, there might even be invisible Jordanite in it!