Turquoise

Rock, you're right, I'll make it two again after each locality.
The assistance plea is fine the way you suggest, then we can indeed leave the descriptions cleaner.
The Henwoodite is brilliant!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2009 09:59AM by Harjo Neutkens.

Harjo,
Turquoise is a real tough one. Most of the localities produce cutting rough and not much in the way of what advanced mineral collectors would call specimens. I hope that a real raving lunatic of a turquoise lapidary guy will get disguised with the fine little specimen oriented article you are doing and weigh in with a lot of good pictures of rough and cut from different localities and help flesh out the article so that it will be more meaningfully and appealing to the general public who will hopefully come to Mindat to look for information on turquoise and at the same time give us the chance to rub their noses in mineralogy and geology.

I am typing this while looking down below the entry screen at an advertisement for "True Blue" Jewelry Gifts with some pictures of turquoise jewelry. Is that at the bottom of your Turquoise article as well? Has Jolyon already sold advertising space at the bottom of the article? If we can make similar gemstone related articles juicy enough perhaps he can sell more space. The more advertising revenue he can generate and we can help him generate the more secure the future of Mindat.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Haha, I was just looking at a BisbeeTurquoise add at the bottom of the page
You're Turquoise is a tough one in that respect, but also a nice one as it appeals to gem people as well as to the micromounters.

The ads are from Google and are at the bottom of the messageboard pages. They display targeted ads.

You mean that Google has automated crawlers that are able to go through such stuff as Best Minerals and automatically insert such adds?

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Jolyon has enrolled in AdSense and their software can look for keywords on a page and decide what ads to serve to the page.

Mindat has very fine turquoise photo's: I would like to introduce our turquoise mine, The Little Chalchihuitl in the Cerrillos Mining District at cerrillosturquoise.com.

Is it this one?
[www.mindat.org]

Patricia, Can you tell us something about your mine? The geology? How much turquoise does it produce? Can you upload some pictures of rough and cut specimens?

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Anyone still monitoring this site??? Why isn't Royston district mentioned??

We don't have any good photos of turquoise from there.

Just like David writes, we don't have good photos from specimens from that locality.
If you ave any (and if the specimens are good enough to be mentioned in the article) could you upload them to the database, so I can add the locality to the article.
Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Harjo

Harjo,

I have some King Solomon turquoise. I will see if I can find it and get it photographed.

The Bingham Copper Mine also produced turquoise for a short time in the 1970's. It is always overlooked by turquoise people but I think it is as beautiful of a turquoise as many others. I added images of it on Mindat already.

Good info! Thank you!

I am a very green rookie (48 hours) of minerals and mines. Having come accross two chunks of maybe Turquoise, I am having the sudden, "Am I Rich!!!" question running through my veins. I am settling down but wow what a sudden rush!

I appreciated this whole website. I have also included a photo. It is hard to capture the blue shades within the rock(s) to share this with others. I am not sure what to do now. The two pieces I found were just sitting there ontop of the ground where we have walked for 15+ years. I started digging down a bit because the ground did colapse under the weight of one of our vehicles about 6 months ago but I feel kind of rediculous. It is just flat desert land. I have no clue whether these pieces were brought here or somehow have filtered their way to the top. hmmm? What does one do? Is it worth much sweat and trouble? If so where do I go from here?

My husband is just chuckling at me being so childlike and full of belief and posibility. Regardless this is fun. In the past I followed a falling star and picked up fragments. These now sit in a coffee tin. Also I have found myself out hunting for any odd objects and have found a few. An interesting little rocket with numbers stamped on it. All bent up and broken apart but regardless I think it is awesome.

I just want to add a little something to the website and hope if anybody has any additional thoughts to send my way I would value that.

I have noticed over the past couple years the price of metal detectors have sky rocketed. If anyone has a suggestion on where a reasonable deal is for me to get a quality one for a poor girls price please share. (maybe there is no such thing)

Thanks again.

Gina
Pinal County Arizona 85193

I am very skeptical of the turquoise ps beryl from California. To my knowledge they have been billed as such but never has any evidence been provided that the pseudomorphs actually use to be beryl. After looking at many specimens I think they are ps of apatite. This is based on the obvious chemical relationship between the minerals but more importantly on the crystallography of the better preserved examples. The most common pyramid face on beryl crystals is the [111-1] face. These are not seen on the specimens from california. Instead the [11-1-1] face is sometimes seen. This is a common face on apatites but less so beryl. (Pardon me if my Miller indices are messed up - it has been a long time.)

OK, to explain what I mean about the crystal faces I'll add this. In beryl, there is commonly a face beveling the edge of the pinacoid between two hexagonal prism faces. That is, at the intersection of two prism faces and the pinacoid. These are not observed on the turquoise pseudos. In their simplest manifestations, when not complicated by adjacent pyramid faces, these faces form triangles.

On apatite, the most common pyramid face occurs at the intersection of one prism face and the pinacoid. these are the faces that I have seen on the psuedos. In their simplest manifestations, when not complicated by adjacent pyramid faces, these faces form trapezoids.While it is true a similar face sometimes occurs in beryl, it almost never occurs without the more common kind I described above.

Thus both the chemical relationship and crystallographic evidence point toward apatite as the original crystalline phase. This should probably be mentioned in the article. I hope this helps.

Nice article.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2012 04:02AM by Keith Wood.

I agree, Keith. To me too, apatite would seem the more likely precursor, although we've had this discussion before and the beryl theory had its staunch defenders.
The mine owner says that "Chesterman at the Ca. Div. of Mines and Geology confirmed turquoise pseudomorphs after beryl based on morphology, trace beryl remnants and in situ beryl nearby." I guess he is sincere, although a lawyer would call this hearsay evidence. And, as you've pointed out, the morphology doesn't really prove beryl; at most one could say that it might represent beryl. The presence of "in situ beryl nearby" doesn't really prove anything either, as it would not be unexpected in a pegmatite environment; and quite to the contrary it brings up the question of why only some of the beryl altered and not other "nearby" beryls? So we are left with the alleged "trace beryl remnants", which probably ought to be subjected to a more modern textural study to see whether (if their presence can be confirmed) they truly represent the precursor mineral and not incidental inclusions in apatite or its matrix.

I also agree with you, Keith.
Apatite is indeed much more likely. I copied your remarks in the article, and leave it to the reader until further study has proved anything conclusive.
Thanks!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2012 05:57AM by Harjo Neutkens.

Don't forget Utah turquoise. I have posted many here.

Rick
I know I am in my own little world, but everyone knows me here.