Artinite

©

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Can you help make this a better article? What good localities have we missed? Can you supply pictures of better specimens than those we show here? Can you give us more and better information about the specimens from these localities? Can you supply better geological or historical information on these localities?

Below are some preliminary notes I have made about Artinite. This entry and thread has been made as a place holder for information that you will hopefully contribute about Artinite. It should be in no way be thought of as a claim I have staked out to write about this mineral, and in fact is an invitation for someone to step forward and create the article about this mineral. If you are so inclined and have questions about the format that such an article should have, go the The welcome topic at the top of the Best Minerals forum and read what has been posted there. Also take a look at some of the more mature articles that have already been written like Rhodochrosite, Adamite, Millerite etc. You will need also to pick out other images of Artinite that will go into the article.



Artinite
Mg₂[(OH)₂|CO₃] · 3H₂O Monoclinic



Artinite Display collections.
Mg2(CO3)(OH)2·3H2O
A white, low temperature mineral found commonly in veinlets or crusts along fracture surfaces in serpentinized ultrabaic rocks commonly associated with hydromagnesite, brucite, aragonite, calcite, dolomite, magnesite etc. All the hand specimens of this material have shown white, acicular crystals or white balls made up of the same. Not a particularly rare mineral and collectors never get very excited about it.

Artinite
Italy
Sondrio Province, Lombardia, Val Malenco, Rocca di Castellaccio. Rocca de Castellaccio will most likely not be found on any maps available in the USA and few in Italy. The locality is near the small town of Chiesa in the far north of the country only a few km south of the Swiss border. “Artinite occurs as white fibrous-radiated crusts or in small groups of silky acicular crystals, up to 2 centimeters long, coating rounded serpentine fragments cemented together in a morainic deposit. The finest specimens are found where a fissure or cavity is left between the serpentine fragments.1 I think that the material from this Italian locality is much the same in nature as the material from near the New Idria in San Benito County, California. In fact as a patriot and having dug specimens at the San Benito County locality, I think that the specimens from California are better.
1 Mineralogical Record, Vol. 3, 1972, p123.

Artinite
Japan
Nakauri Mine. “Radiating aggregates up to 5 cm across at the Nakauri mine.”1
1 Personal communication from Alfredo Petrov
I asked Alfredo for more information.

Artinite
United States
California, San Benito County, New Idria A & B. The Artinite from here came from no mine, but rather a surface outcrop of serpentine rich boulders which you would dig up and pry apart and the Artinite would be lining the rock in the spaces between the blocks. The best specimens were crisp, white, balls of acicular crystals up to a little more than perhaps 2 cm max and usually smaller. The best specimens were clusters of balls more or less isolated rather than the wall to wall carpets of crystals which were also found. Usually the smaller specimens were more elegant than the larger ones because on the larger ones, the artinite balls tended to get lost. The two specimens of artinite shown here I collected in the 1970’s. The material was abundant. On a weekend of collecting you could collect several hundred specimens ranging in size up to large cabinet specimens a foot or more across. One collecting trip was made uncomfortable by the thousands of lady bugs that were infesting the area. Occasional specimens of micro red-orange desautelsite were found associated with the artinite and hydromagnesite. This is one mineral you should protect in some sort of sealed container. I think that, like many of the borate minerals, the acidic air of big cities tends to degrade them a little over the years. The ones I collected and have kept for the last 30 years in the less than pristine air of Los Angeles seem to have lost some of their sparkle.

Artinite
New York
Staten Island. In the late 60’s an artinite locality was discovered on Staten Island. It was popular with local collectors because it was one of the few localities near New York City where you could actually collect specimens. The material consisted of tiny white tufts of crystals of a few mm on matrix. While I lived in Westchester County, I thought the specimens were rather feeble compared to the specimens I had dug in California and never bothered to visit the locality. However some of the locals who dug it thought the artinite from there was the best thing since sliced bread and proceeded to collect and trade specimens of it for all manner of good things. Including, believe it or not, some classical Antwerp, NY millerites from the state museum in Albany. The curator of the museum was a young man who didn’t know any better and it was a bit of a scandal in the collecting community, for a while, until he managed to get the specimens back. They even managed to trade a specimen for a good Alaskan epidote specimen from the Smithsonian Institute. Another minor scandal. When Paul Desautels (the curator at the time) found out about it he reportedly took a hammer and chisel and removed the little artinite tufts from the 12”+ specimen and piled them all in a box, not wanting to take up storage space for such a big low grade specimen. Neil Yedlin referred to the material as a calcium, magnesium; purse your lips and make the sound of a raspberry!



Click here to view Best Minerals A and here for Best Minerals A to Z and here for Fast Navigation of completed Best Minerals articles.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2012 08:17AM by Rock Currier.

Ciao Rock you can use this photo for you report. [www.mindat.org]
Sorry but is impossible for me to obtain the photo of Italian type localty of this sample.
In my gallery there also a good photo #218785 regarding artinite in Albano,Latium,Italy
good discovery in tabular colorless crystals associated with periclase.
Ciao

Domenico,
Were I writing the article, I would find it difficult not to use that image. Great photo.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.