"Ochre" Mineral Page - photo error

The mineral page for "Ochre" features a photo of hematite variety "iron rose" - a beautiful specimen, but not ochre.


[www.mindat.org]

The Ochre page is wrong in many different ways for a good description see [en.wikipedia.org]

More of these infuriating multi synonymns that are not synonymns at all! We should get rid of these for all the Fe, Sb, Mo and Pb ochres too, the pictures are particularly totally misleading. More accurate to call them mixtures.

Regards,
Ralph



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 11:25AM by Ralph Bottrill.

Or not allow any photos maybe.

Yes Uwe, unless we are just careful to select very appropriate photos? I have done this with a couple (uglier but more appropriate photos).

But there is still a disturbing issue with having the locations for eg. iron ochres showing every known occurrences of hematite, goethite etc, whether as an ochre or not (26,000). There probably are thousands of occurrences of ochre worldwide, but nobody photographs them, and I could only fine one picture labelled as such, so added that to the iron ochre page. Similarly not every massicot is earthy, so its not an ochre, etc.

Some ochres are already listed as mixtures rather than synonyms. I have tried to edit iron and lead ochres to mixtures, but it does not cooperate!

Until we get rid of multi-synonyms we keep presenting people with badly misleading images and data!

Regards,
Ralph

These are not multi-synonyms. They need to be changed.

They can be set as mixtures, or simply a plain mineral with the list of possible identities in the description.

As we remember from basic Mindat Lesson number 1.

A synonym is only the case where A = B (or A = B, C and D) and B is also always = A (or B, C and D are always = A)

So this is simply a matter of something that has not been categorized correctly.

Edit it (as I have for 'ochre' and 'antimony ochre', both in different ways to show what I mean) and problem will go away.

Jolyon

Jolyon, it probably best to call them mixtures rather than minerals, but the problem is the system wont let me change the classification once they are listed as synonyms.

Regards,
Ralph

Now Ochre is listed as a mixture of a long list of things. Such a witches' recipe has probably never existed in nature at all. I think terms with as much vagueness and as many different uses as "ochre" are best not linked to anything else, neither "varieties", nor "synonyms", nor "mixtures", just an isolated page with no links to anything else and a descriptive paragraph on the historical uses of the word. (Individual varieties mentioned in the description can be linked to their respective pages, but not the "Ochre" itself.)

Alfredo, that's true, though unprefixed "ochre " is generally considered to be mostly iron oxides, and all the other ochres are usually prefixed, it could be confusing to call it a synonym still. You could not consider it a mineral or compound, Maybe we need a different classification for such things? (or is it a rock?).

Regards,
Ralph

Yes, Ralph, it doesn't fit any of our classifications. It's more of a textural term than anything synonymous with any particular mineral, variety, group of minerals or mixtures. I think calling it a mixture is wrong, because some ochres may be pure. That's why I think the page should just stand alone, with its written description, and not get linked to anything.

Fair enough, I quite agree but how can you have an unclassified page?

Regards,
Ralph

The "Mineral" option is what Alfredo is talking about - this is simply an entry that does not need to link directly or refer to others (as variety and synonyms do, for example).

Jolyon

I could be pedantic and say it cannot be a mineral if its not of fixed chemical composition etc, but maybe I should just let it go as at least it looks Ok now.

Regards,
Ralph