Zebra stone

Wallcott - the algae were described from the western US (Montana)
[books.google.com]

Great thanks for that
His findings were dismissed until recent ties I believe
do you have Ian's information on this ?

I agree with Ralph, is this really a mineral, or should it go to Rockdat?

Cheers

Tom
we have gone way off track but the trilobite molecule is fascinating, though its a long bow to run from Ru molecules to evolution.
I must agree scientific journals are way too expensive, but its usually free or cheap tp publish, so as not to just make it a forum for a few rich institutions. And the peer review system has good and bad features. It stops people writing unsubstantiated articles without sufficient facts or logic, but it can exclude novel ideas at times. People still write anything in books or on the internet, but books are not always valued as references, and internet articles quite rarely, at least with scientists, unless they get some peer review or other qualification. You cannot believe too much on the internet (except most of Mindat of course!). New ideas are not always useful unless people have to tools to filter the rubbish out, and most people dont (witness the continuing growth of crystal healing etc).

Regards,
Ralph

Ralph Bottrill wrote: "[the peer review system] stops people writing unsubstantiated articles without sufficient facts or logic..."

Unfortunately, not always.

Numerous Journal articles on everything from faked fossils to cold fusion to female hysteria to shock therapy to creationism to spontaneous generation to martian canals to phrenology to climate change to intelligent design and alchemy/metaphysics, etc. have been written in the past 100 years or so - many fraudulently, all without sufficient facts or logic.

Today there's still no way to stop people from writing/publishing such unsubstantiated articles. At best, we can hope for followup research to quickly correct for such things. At worst, common people start to act upon the unsubstantiated articles and then they (and their children) suffer because of it.

Stephanie,
Can you upload the image to our database? Ill stick it in the golssary under zebra stone.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

AJMI, fair comment, but in most of these cases they would not be in respectable peer-reviewed journals or they would be cases where the data appeared good and logical, so appeared reasonable until new data came to light. It's not perfect but it's the best we can come up with, there will always be mistakes and frauds, but without it there would be complete chaos. The great thing about science is that extraordinary claims will always be greeted with scepticism and challenged thoughtfully.

Regards,
Ralph

Hi,
The Printstone could be referring to material mined near Tom Price by a Western Australian mineral dealer who goes to Tuscon each year with drums of material from the State. As Ralph has mentioned there are probably dozens of rocks marketed around the world as Zebra Stone. Near Paynes Find in Western Australia is a Zebra Quartz of quartz and basalt layers. I have examples of types of Zebra Stone from Argyle marketed as Okapi Stone, Astronomite, Rainbow Stone, and Ribbon Stone, which are all variations of Zebra Stone given fancy names. I have been meaning to upload photos but been too busy wriring articles on Mindat. Will try to get to it soon. Much of the deposits were drowned under Lake Argyle which is the size of a small sea, but as noted above material can still be found in the region. Local shops in Kununurra sell it if you are not keen on climbing cliffs, although possibly more fun.

Someone should write up a glossary entry for Printstone taking about localities and how prolific some of them are, the geology that caused them or we suspect may have caused them, pictures and even literature references if some can be found.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.