New find from Aris

Narsarsukite!

Locality file updated:
[www.mindat.org]

Eudialyte or a related member of the eudialyte group - pale pink platelets.

First confirmation of the report of "eudialyte" in Knorring and Franke (1987).
Structure refinement planned.

Locality file updated.

Kalsilite. EDIT: wrong ID, see below!

Locality file updated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2009 08:45AM by Uwe Kolitsch.

Well, Uwe! Very interesting news!

Uwe,

Any photos of these ?

Bill

Not yet.

New finds (pers. comm. by Prof. Friedrich Koller, University of Vienna, based on chemical analyses on thin sections):
- sérandite
- a rosenbuschite-group mineral

Both appear as small (up to ~20 micron) grains, and are not uncommon in thin sections.

Correction on the "kalsilite"!
EDS analysis showed it to be the the La-analogue of Unnamed (MSH UK-60) (just approved as *******-(La)).
Original misidentification arose because the unit-cell parameters of *******-(La) / *******- (Ce) = IMA 2009-013) are coincidentally very similar to those of kalsilite (Bravais type is identical).

Hi Uwe,
I am just sending a specimen for id. that has narsarsukite morphology (square, tabular crystal with truncated corners). It shows interesting color zoning with a dark brown, opaque central zone grading to translucent yellow becoming transparent and nearly colorless at the outer edges. Based on morphology, narsarsukite was one of the possible minerals on my "guess list."
Laszlo

Hi Laszlo,
I suspect this could also be a turkestanite/steacyite/iraqite phase.
I have seen and studied similarly colour-zoned xls.

Cheers, Uwe

Another small specimen of a eudialyte group mineral from Aris could be confirmed recently: again (collection Joachim Esche), it's pale pink platelets.
EDS scheduled; the unit-cell parameters are somewhat different from those of the first find.

Finally, a photo of the second find of an eudialyte-group mineral:
[www.mindat.org]

Has anyone analyzed the beautiful yellow narsarsukites from the Sweetgrass Hills near Whitlash, Montana ? Xls to one inch.

My collecting trip was inspired by a 1953 American Mineralogist article.

I collected 80 pounds of them back in 1982. I don't think anyone since has visited the locale.

Free samples for analysts with time on their hands.

Much logistics were required to find the place, and much more logistics were required to get out safely.

Metal foreign body in my cornea, and 200 plus porcupine quills in my famous old dog Carbide.

That night after crashing my motorbike into a canyon with my 90 pound pack, I watched a lovely display of the Northern lights with one eye.

And sometimes looked downhill at the kerosene lamps of the Hutterite villlage 12 miles away.

The next morning I put six sedatives into a pan of Kool-Aid, watched Carbide drink it, and then lashed his legs together, wedged him in next to my Jeepster's rear tire with a six foot digging bar, got my scissors and pliers out, cut the tips off the worst of the quills, and proceeded to pull out the first quill. He bucked me and hobbled away.

So off to Havre, Montana 200 miles away, the nearest town with a veterinarian.

At 6 AM the next morning I delivered him. I was told it would be 4 hours before I could collect him.

Then I went to the hardware store where I watched Hutterite children on their hands and knees looking at toys while their parents shopped for necessities. One child was always on lookout for a disapproving parent.

And then, with increasing pain in my eye, I went to the clinic where I was given multiple tests, and then had the metal foreign body GROUND out of my cornea. The metal foreign body had already started to rust. It was not a chisel fragment, but rather a drill cutting from a hole I drilled into the foot peg of my motorbike the morning of the narsarsukite dig. It blew into my eye as I blew the cuttings away, but I didn't notice the irritation until much later in the day.

I expected that my two medical bills would exceed my traveler's checks value and planned to head back to Seattle.

Low and behold, my bill at the clinic was $25. And then the bill at the veterinarian was also $25 ! Four people spent four hours on him.

If you want low cost health care, go to Havre, Montana in 1982

There is much more to the same day including Rocky Boy Reservation Police, eudialyte collecting on Windy Boy Peak, collecting the type locality for calkinsite, and indian women.

Should I continue ? Or is there a sub-category for YARNS that I should post to ?

I'm sure Rock Currier could exceed my stories by 100 to 1.

Bart....

Wonderful story....

PLEASE continue.....
and then make it into an article to post. These kinds of collecting stories are gems to those of us indoors reading!

greg slak

Greg,

You are to blame for my continuing with the rest of the story.

So there I am, a few miles South of Havre at the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation headquartes with one pupil the size of a dime due to the atropine application at the clinic.

I am attempting to get permission to collect minerals on their reservation and I find a group of Rocky Boys standing in their central grounds.

They tell me that mineral collecting requires a $250 per day fee because some years ago a local mineral collector collected some smoky quartz crystals which had a total value of $250.

I left dejectedly in defeat from their clatch.

But there was a white guy there who was the director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He took me aside and told me to just ignore them, and head up to the area.

So that is what I did even though I felt a bit guilty. But, heck I needed to make a living.

As I proceeded to the nepheline syenite area, a monstrous thunderstorm had arrived. Downpours of rain and breathtaking thunder were ocrurring. I had to put my Jeepster into four wheel drive just to get up the slight grades of the roads. Roads in those areas turn to greasy soup in a rain storm.

With some extra effort I made it up the pass to where the eudialyte pegmatites occur. Just as the storms passed and a pretty orange-pink sunset was showing. I felt relieved and a bit joyful, though Carbide was crumpled up and spaced out in my sleeping bag on the floorboard of my Jeepster.

As I admired the sunset from the pass in my parked vehicle near the calkinsite loclality, and near the eudialyte locality I noticed something disturbing in my rear view mirror.

It was a tribal squad car in mid air ! Like in a movie.

I thought, I'M NOT EVEN OUT OF MY CAR !!!!!

The squad car pulled right up alongside of me. I feared some kind of citation.

But the Rocky Boy tribal member just said hello, and then told me that he really had to gun the engine to get up that sloppy road. And that he was going to drive a spur road because he could use his CB radio to talk to a girl wanted to date from that location. Cool for me. Sorry to imply from the previous e-mail that "indian women" related to me directly.

Then I drove to the opposite side of the main road which was the place I wanted to stay the night to start my hike to the eudialyte pegmatites which I would collect the next day.

Carbide was conscious by then, but not too agile. As we returned at late dusk from the pegmatites he took a flying leap from a small outcrop thinking he was still an athlete, but he rolled down the hill like a ball of jelly.

The next morning I collected the pegmatites. Few vugs, but lots of eudialyte and lamprophyllite. Not much potential commerce.

I was disappointed so it was down to the calkinsite location. I found the vein of calkinsite and burbankite. But fearing the wrath of the tribes I removed the rear tire on my Jeepster to feign a break down. And then put about 10 pounds of ugly beige crud into a box.

Wilson Crook the Third confirmed the presence of burbankite and calkinsite in that batch. I can confirm lanthanum minerals are present, but I have never been able to confirm burkankite or calkinsite except that lanthanum minerals are present in my 10 pounds of crud.

You all remember Wilson Crook III don't you? Texasite.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2011 02:18AM by Bart Cannon.

You mean this Texasite:
[www.minsocam.org]
That was further described in:
[www.minsocam.org]
Isn't Wilson Crook III pursuing a career in archaeology now?

Rob,

Texasite is a praesodymium sulfate of great ill repute.

It caused David Garske a fair amount of pain.

I've already posted on this somewhere on Mindat.

Wilson Crook is now an archaeologist in Texas.

Mineralogy is a good companion to archaeology.

Keep in mind that I've always considered Wilson Crook III to be a great guy who made a peculiar mistake.

I offered to buy back my texasites from my customers, but no one would return one.

Finally got one back when I bought John C. White's mineral collection.

For my history and emphera collection.

He appears to have made more than one.

"I've always considered Wilson Crook III to be a great guy who made a peculiar mistake."

That's a VERY (read: too) polite statement, if one considers how he utterly faked his data.

He does have a very appropriate surname