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GeneralTesting mineral properites?
2nd Jul 2007 17:12 UTCHenry Barwood
Henry Barwood
2nd Jul 2007 19:54 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager
3rd Jul 2007 20:55 UTCHenry Barwood
Henry
4th Jul 2007 02:00 UTCJenna Mast
I'd love to be able to run in depth tests myself. Unfortunatly I don't have access to any facilities and if I did, I don't have the skills to use them.
4th Jul 2007 09:32 UTCjacques jedwab
4th Jul 2007 15:49 UTCDonald Peck
I use the common physical properties (including specific gravity), chemical spot tests, and occasionally optical properties. A simple specific gravity balance that is quite accurate and precise can be built. An ordinary used student biological microscope can be modified to *almost* do the work of a petrographic scope.
I am a micromounter, and testing minerals is,to me, a lot more interesting than simply gluing a specimen on a peg and then in a small box.
4th Jul 2007 18:30 UTCDon Saathoff Expert
5th Jul 2007 00:45 UTCHenry Barwood
Some simple techniques/procedures rarely used these days:
Blowpipe (bead) analysis (very simple tools needed)
Ring oven (more complex, but still easy to do with a little knowledge of chemistry)
Specific gravity (heavy liquid technique)
Acid reaction
Charcoal and plaster block tests (usually combined with blowpipe analysis)
Refractive index (OK, you need a scope and some oils, but still pretty simple)
The amateur who has mastered these simple techniques can probably identify 80-90% of the mineral species. Notice that I didn't mention X-ray or microprobes of any kind.
Curt Segeler used to routinely chemically analyze samples with a ring oven before sending them to me to confirm with XRD. In a decade, he only missed a common mineral once, and it was a metamict zircon that would have fooled most people!
5th Jul 2007 13:02 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager
I seriously doubt that (unless "mineral species" is restricted to the most common minerals and includes families and groups instead of single species).
I would also highly recommend microchemical spot tests (applicable mainly to non-silicates / secondary minerals) - they worked fine for me when I was a student.
5th Jul 2007 13:35 UTCPaul L. Boyer
5th Jul 2007 13:53 UTCJim Ferraiolo
5th Jul 2007 15:47 UTCDonald Peck
Donald Bloss and his students developed the spindle stage techniques and produced a computer program, EXCALIBR, which does all the hard work. It has gone through several generations and the latest EXCALIBR-W is available free. There is an article in "The Microscope" by Mickey Gunter that tells how to use the spindle stage and what it can do. For anyone interested, both the article and EXCALIBR-W (download) are available on his website at (Univ of Idaho).
5th Jul 2007 16:38 UTCHenry Barwood
5th Jul 2007 17:53 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager
5th Jul 2007 18:01 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager
5th Jul 2007 23:22 UTCDon Saathoff Expert
6th Jul 2007 15:20 UTCPete Nancarrow
Pete N.
7th Jul 2007 00:40 UTCJenna Mast
It's not the most comprehensive but it's a neat little book, especially for the price I got it at, and it even has some Greenland minerals in it:-)
1st May 2012 18:09 UTCF. D. Bloss
At 92 I've just finished my memoir which the Mineralogical Society of America will publish.
My regards to Henry.
Don Bloss
2nd May 2012 15:31 UTCDonald Peck
Thank you for your response. I am continuously amazed at the ease of use and the forgiving nature of the spindle stage. I find that the most difficult part of using it is mounting a grain in a position that is useful. Thank you for your contributions to the science.
Don Peck
2nd May 2012 21:50 UTCDana Morong
After this one, one can get the other older books by asking others about them, and then, if the local used book shop doesn't have them (not all do, and they can be far and few, although interesting when one does find them), searching on used book websites such as abebooks.com and alibris and others like that. Sometimes even a fellow collector will have a spare copy of some spare beat-up old book (such as one of the Brush & Penfield Determinative Mineralogy) which he just can't bring himself to toss out. Sometimes such a person will ship one for the cost of shipping, just to get it to where it can be used and appreciated.
4th May 2012 16:28 UTCJames Pool
I haven't had the best success in downloading the Kindle versions of some mineral related texts that I downloaded from there. I suspect if I spent enough time with Calibre and formatting and correcting errors, I can get a good usable Kindle copy of some sloppy OCRed books by comparing the PDF scan. A Kindle Fire or some other even larger format tablet device like the iPad may be good for straight PDFs. The regular e-ink Kindle is just a little bit too small to show many straight PDF files without having to zoom which is a bit awkward. Landscape mode works fairly well for the e-ink Kindles with some PDFs.
I would start with Peck's book though as it is easily available and it gives a good overview of mineral testing. I haven't used the CD that is bundled with the book yet so I don't know if it has the more detailed blowpipe and bead test results of an older work like the Brush/Penfield book.
5th May 2012 15:51 UTCDonald Peck
BTW, MinSearch is a 32 bit fully compiled program and will run under the new Microsoft 64 bit systems. However the Install Shield installer will not. If you have a problem, contact me and I will provide a "work-around".
11th May 2012 16:58 UTCRon Layton
12th May 2012 18:40 UTCJames Pool
12th May 2012 23:28 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder
I find PDF quite readable on the iPad, but not on Kindle - which is why I find the iPad a more useful ebook reader than Kindle for the things I normally read.
Jolyon
12th May 2012 23:49 UTCRon Layton
13th May 2012 02:11 UTCEugene & Sharon Cisneros Expert
As a boy of 12, my first interest in mineralogy began with this book. My mother couldn't understand my lust for glassware, chemicals and other apparatus, but relented to my wants. I have to admit that my interest in chemistry took a sidetrack from minerals, which eventually let to some rather interesting misadventures. Eventually though, my interest returned to mineralogy. Sixty years later, I still keep a copy of this book on my bookshelf.
Gene
23rd May 2012 02:14 UTCRon Layton
23rd May 2012 09:39 UTCRock Currier Expert
23rd May 2012 16:58 UTCDonald Peck
2nd Oct 2012 19:53 UTCJames Pool
-------------------------------------------------------
> James, MinSearch on the CD in my book, does not
> tell you how to do any tests. What it does do is
> list those minerals for which there is a match
> when any number of physical, chemical, and/or
> optical properties (observations) are input. So,
> if you know say, the color, luster, streak, and
> diaphaneity and the bead test indicates cobalt,
> you can input those properties and generate a list
> of the minerals that match (from more than 4000).
> You can use the locallity from included
> locallities database (3000) as one of the
> properties if the list of minerals for the
> locallity is included. MinSearch is extremely
> fast and isn't intended to replace reference
> books, but rather to winnow the list of possible
> minerals down to a handful or less so one know
> where to look in the books. The program can be
> used also for a quick lookup for the properties of
> a given mineral. I hope you try it.
>
> BTW, MinSearch is a 32 bit fully compiled program
> and will run under the new Microsoft 64 bit
> systems. However the Install Shield installer
> will not. If you have a problem, contact me and I
> will provide a "work-around".
Hi Don,
I finally got around to putting the CD into my laptop computer. However it will not install since I am running 64 bit windows. I sent you a PM a while back so check that so you can provide me a "work-around". Thanks!
3rd Oct 2012 16:45 UTCDonald Peck
Don
3rd Oct 2012 17:25 UTCTim Jokela Jr
3rd Oct 2012 19:56 UTCTony Nikischer 🌟 Manager
I, too, remember Curt Segeler's careful work sans XRD and EMPA, and his results were rarely incorrect when later checked by more elaborate means. We are, indeed, slaves to our machines, as they are fast and straightforward in most cases. But those willing to labor as the classical mineralogists did, certainly have plenty of hard copy resources to help teach them how to go about it!
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Privacy Policy - Terms & Conditions - Contact Us / DMCA issues - Report a bug/vulnerability Current server date and time: April 26, 2024 14:01:22