Best Minerals - Calcite

In this forum we hope to create articles with pictures about all the best Calcite specimens from all the good Calcite localities. You are welcomed and encouraged to help create content for this and all the Best Mineral forums. You are encouraged to use the approximate format that has already been developed and exampled in the more extensively developed examples in the Best A Minerals forum. If you would like to take a crack at creating content for a particular calcite locality(s) or all the calcite localities, please read over the suggestions and example in the sticky message at the top of the A minerals forum and then add it to this thread entry and I will work with you and walk you through any problems you may encounter. Ill also create a thread entry for the mineral you want to work on and help get you started. You will not be able to create new threads in this forum, unless you are approved as a moderator of the Best Minerals forum. If you have something you think is worth adding to the thread about a particular mineral, just make a thread entry about it, and Ill add it into the thread for that particular entry or at leas ask you for more information about it. There is a huge amount of work to do, so lets get started.

Ideally what we want to know about each significant mineral from each locality is:

1. What is the largest crystal of the mineral that the locality has produced?
2. What do the best specimens from this locality look like and where can one be seen?
3. Does the locality produce a variety of different kinds of specimens of this species, and what do the best of each type look like and how many of them were found etc.
4. What are the associated minerals found with this species and what is its geological setting?
5. How abundant are these specimens and when were they found? A type locality? In other words, how rare are they.
6. How do they compare to other specimens of the same mineral from other localities?
7. How much is it worth. This should probably be optional, but in cases where specimens are worth thousands of dollars we should probably say something of the value of these things.
8. What kind of care and feeding do these specimens require? Are they delicate, radioactive, unstable, color changeable etc.?
9. Are the specimens commonly faked, and if so, how to tell if they are?
10. Are there any interesting stories relating to the collecting of these specimens or their discovery as a new mineral?

Of course this is in reality impractical, but if we keep these questions in mind, we will do a lot better job when writing about them.

Here are some interesting statistics about calcite and quartz here on Mindat (April, 2009)
Calcite: ~16,000 localities ~7400 images 56 countries represented
Quartz: ~28,800 localities ~5000 images 65 countries represented

Most lists of countries of the world list a few more than 200 countries. That means that here on mindat we do not have any calcite or quartz specimens pictured here for more than two thirds of the world. I wonder how many countries in the world have no mineral localities what so ever listed here on mindat.

In spite of there being many more quartz localities than calcite localities (probably) calcites images of calcite specimens are substantially better represented here on Mindat than quartz specimens. I think the reason for this is that when calcite specimens are found, they are found in much greater abundance than quartz specimens. Often cave networks are found during mining and the walls of these caves are lined with calcite crystals. Often to the tune of many tons of crystals that are lining acres of wall area. From these caves, providing the calcite is attractive enough and the collection of the specimens are permitted by the mining management, come many many tons of calcite specimens. I can't think of a single occurrence of quartz where quartz crystals can be collected in similar abundance. Though quartz may be more common than calcite in the crust of the earth I believe that they considerably outnumber quartz specimens by to a substantial degree.
[Rock Currier 2009]

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2009 09:35AM by Rock Currier.

Sweden has several deposits which have historically produced fine calcites, mostly little known abroad.
The Malmberget deposit situated N of the polar circle near Gällivare, Lappland, Sweden was known by the Sami people long ago and ore was transported during the 18th century primarily on rein-deer pulled sledges to the coast. In 1888 the railroad reached Malmberget and the mine started producing magnetite and in part hematite ore.

LKAB is mining very rich Magnetite ore from a serie of orebodies. These orebodies are lined up roughly in a 6 km long S-shape and have been heavily affected by tectonic movements, skarn formation and pegmatite invasion. The result is an axtremely pocket rich environment which is does not hinder mining in most cases but give a need to cover everything in shot concrete soon after blasting.

For many decades very beautiful mineral specimens were found in the upper workings and were well known in Sweden. These included calcite crystals, some to have been known to exist in such beauty that is was used in jewellry.
In the late 1970s and early 1980 several pockets yielded quite sharp light yellow to brownish calcite scalenoedral crystals, some with phantoms.
About two dozen small cabinet groups were recoverd from one pocket in the ceiling just where a mine tunnel twisted. Some of these were brought to the kopparberg show by a miner and were all sold quickly. They were perhaps among the few hundred finest types of calcite found up til then on earth.

During a visit to the mine, I came across a small fragment of a crystal at a miners house. The miner did not think much about it as he had large plates with white crystals, brown crystals, some huge crystals etc. This was only a cm size shard, but this writer had never seen any calcite from anywhere with such deep golden yellow-orange color free from any brown tones.

I was very eager to try to find out from the miner where he had collected this sample. He immediately remembered that it was in a twist of a tunnnel, not the forementioned one but somewhere else. We searched the tunnels for many days, the mine was and I believe still is, the second largest underground mine in the world.

In December 1988 I and a miner at the Malmberget Mine found the spot, a small side dig out in a tunnel bend. There were no signs whatsoever in the dark magnetute ore or the side rock of any calcite. We found a nearly vertical fracture in the magnetite fileld with large grained magnetite sand. We dug an arm length in without any signs of any crystallization in the sand or on the walls. In the light of only our head lights shining into this narrow fracture we suddenly saw the most incredible flawless gem quality deep golden scalenohedrons of calcite appear on the left wall in the fissure just over an arm length in. I had before dug large gem tourmalines and found many other exciting pockets but this was the most incredible find ever! Only those few who have seen these crystals can imagine their beauty!

The top of my collection up til that time were Kongsberg silvers and gem crystals, which all suddenly faded in comparison.
I always appreciated the varied morphology of calcites but few of them made me as excited as the best gem crystals.
Now these were golden gem calcites and we called the pocket "The Gem Pocket" in english and I and my miner friend used the name gulhålan in Swedish.

The first three crystals recovered came from much further into the pocket. They came sliding down a sand slope form an upper extension of the pocket. Two of them fitted together and make up the first known and preserved gem quality golden calcite ever recovered at the Malmberget Mine.

The pocket was backfilled as it was getting towards midnight before which everyone has to leave the mine for the nightly blasting which makes the whole town above ground jump. It was aqgreed that we would make a tunnel through the hard side rock to extract the found golden calcites on matrix. The group consisted of an incredible flower of more than a dozen razor sharp scalenohedrons mostly 5-10 cm long. in the middle of the flower there was a depression where no perfect crystals were growing, still it was an incredible group.

I had to return back to southern Sweden to do examinations at the Chalmers University of Technology and my miner dug by hand a 3 meter tunnel and ended up facing the calcite group. One evening he was so tired that he feared to damage the group if he would continue. We had agreed to drill out a large magnetite specimen and later trip at the surface. Now, by chance my friend told another miner about our find. This miner, who had never ever collected a specimen decided he would go down and have a look. He then at the sight of the golden calcites simply knocked them off the matrix. I was shocked, booth by my friend giving up the location and by the ignorance of the second miner, but it was understandable, or typical for a non collector. On the telephone I asked him not to further touch or move the crystals which we had found and he removed. He agreed.
A couple of weeks later when I returned, several of the crystals from the group were damaged, a couple had been given away or sold.

During several years I had to buy back the crystals I had found even from collectors in other countries! The group could simply not be recreated and I kept most of the crystals in my collection up til now.

My miner friend had one of the three first fantastic crystals at his house, and showed it to a neighbour who was a beginning collector mostly due to the fact that she was neighbour of a great miner, who saw the beauty of fine crystals and had recovered some every now and then, although not systematically and not always with the care necessary to preserve the best of minerals.

She loaned this crystal and showed to some other miners, who of jealousy started to spread rumours that they had found the same, but in much larger crystals. My miner, and the second teamed up to located this fictious pocket. They searched the tunnels with no result. Having seen many pockets in the mine, and no other with such color we discussed and believed the chance would be in the same fracture zone either at the level above or under our find. On the level above (25 m higher) a small shot concrete fissure and wider pocket entrance was found right under the ceiling on the near vertical wall. The miner called me immediately and reported that they had found an even larger pocket covered with the same color golden calcites, not so elongated ones, but in one corner some giant crystals 10-20 cm long and up to 10 cm thick were glowing!
And, the miner said on the telephone, at the bottom there is a big knob where there are some strange golden calcites growing - they look like butterflies! I could not believe my ears, and I asked again if the color was really like our first pocket, what shape, size and color of the Butterfly crystals.... I asked the miner to proceed with uttermost care, to protect the crystals with clean soft cloth before drilling away the hard brecciated matrix below the pocket and remove the entire know in one as complete as possible specimen.

I immediately went again to the mine and my brother came along. Well in the pocket I and my brother could barely believe our eyes.
There were the most intense golden calcites again, some even in butterfly twins. We worked the pocket carefully. During a couple of years we were several co owners of the few specimens form this pocket until I had acquired all the best specimens. They are still kept in my collection.of

The finest must simply be seen to be believed.

It is interesting to note that Rocks and Minerals once had a competition, of the finest calcite localities of the world, and because I kept all the best specimens in my private collection, Malmberget was not even known among the many fine collectors and museum curators who submitted proposals.

In short, 20 years ago the most incredible gemmy golden calcites were found and recovered from the Malmberget Mine in Lappland, Sweden.
To stand out among very common mineral species like calcite, quartz, pyrite, fluorite, with tens of thousands of localities and dozens if not more great localities, is much more difficult than to stand out in quality among rare mineral species. A good example is Phosphophyllite.

COPYRIGHT: Peter Lyckberg

Soon after I had photographed the incredible Butterfly Twin Pocket or "övre gul hålan" (upper yellow pocket) in Swedish, other miners destroyed much of the pocket and all beautiful crystals and groups still in situ in the ceiling of the pocket. The sight was devastating.

They had pounded with sledge hammers on the terminations and very small now white shards and dust were everywhere. It was a tragic sight.

Later I found out that german, swedish, norwegian even a japanese dealer had arrived to the mine, and some of them had bribed other miners to get some beautiful crystals. Now, no other miners had permission to recover specimens in the mine.

The mining company even received proposals from mineral dealers who tried to come and mine for specimens behind our backs!

It was by dedication, serious work and deep interest and love for minerals and special circumstances that we would find these incredible golden calcites.

I must thank my miner friends to have finally listened to me, that calcite is a very sensitive mineral, easily scratched and damaged by iron bars!!! and hammers!!! Otherwise the specimens recovered would have been nothing to what they are.

The tunnels were dissused at the time of the find and were shortly after behind sealed thick concrete walls in order not to heat the entire mine and to protect from cave in blasts! Had we not acted in time, to search the source of this golden shard, these golden calcites would have now been hidden under million tons of caved in rock! It makes one think how many times this is the case! Probably most!!!


In August 2007 this whole section of the mine finally collapsed in a multi million ton shake, including hundreds of meters vertical movement.
The open pits at the surface has grown so large that the entire town has been and is planned to be moved.

A very big thank you to my grandmother Clara, who in 1966 collected underground my first Malmbetget specimen, a grainy deep black magnetite with minute gemmy green fluorapatite grains, a treasure for me as a child. It must be noted here also that my grandmother, who was very sharp and had an artistic eye, on her visits to my collection around 1972 pointed out that she had seen several of my minerals in pockets underground or in the mining museum, only they were much larger. These included fluorapatite (mine from Durango, Mexico), hornblände (often Mg in the case of Malmberget), calcite, pyrite of various morphology etc. But in the mine she had seen green hexagonal crystals the size of my underarm, huge pyrites, hornblände etc. I thought my grandmother was fantasizing and only several years later I found out how incredibly correct she was in her descriptions !

Ps. This is a first draft and I will edit it at another date. There is so much more to tell about this find. Ds.

I must further inform that no collecting is permitted today at the Malmberget Mine and during the last ten years very few finds have been made.
Most of the pockets yielding fine specimens, i.e. the pocket rich zone was located at between the surface and 600 meters depth. Mining today is at much deeper levels.

At the Malmberget Mineral show year 2000, we brought with the gracious help of the mining company many truckloads of pocket material from another calcite pocket yielding clear-white DT calcites on orange-brown stilbite, which was dumped for all show attendees to freely dig in and bring samples for free for their own collection.

For this same show, two miners dedicated two years work, paid by the mining company LKAB and I and my brother also pariticpated to dig many pockets. All specimens were sold at the show.

The mine have had guided tourist tours by bus underground, however not for collecting but for viewing the mine.
Most mine tunnels are covered by shot concrete, but a visit is most interesting.

Roads lead up to the top of the mountain with a nice view of the surroundings and into the many open pits.
These are extremely dangerous, as everything is undermined down to 1000 meter depth!
Access is not allowed due to the enormous risks and annuall cave ins.

Peter, Much of what you have written is the kind of thing we want to capture and organize in this forum. During your visit I hope that we will be able to spend a little time and organize it into a more or less standard format that can be followed by others. Do you have any pictures of the calcites from this locality that you can upload to mindat and perhaps some locality images as well? There is not much else in life better than collecting wonderful pockets of fine minerals.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Here’s a plea for a world class locality for outstanding Calcites that hardly gets mentioned in the current monographies on Calcite.

Belgium, Calcite paradise.

The mountainous regions of Belgium (mainly south of the Sambre and Meuse rivers) consist for the greater part of Limestone plateaus.
Although there are other types of geologic environments in Belgium, for example the metamorphic rocks encountered in several ereas of the Ardennes mountains and the eruptive rock in the Hainaut province where Calcite crystals have been found, the mainstay of Belgian Calcite specimens are being found in Devonian and Dinantian Limestone.
For ages Belgian Limestone has been exploited in quarries, nowadays mainly for building purposes like road construction, ornamental stones and concrete but also for the glass, food and chemical industries.
From the middle ages onwards (and probably even earlier) Belgium also has been a prime source for marble, actually it’s not a genuine marble but a dense and hard limestone that shows very appealing ornamental patterns.
Especially the red “marble” found around Rochefort and the black “marble” encountered around Yvoir where in high demand and got exported throughout Europe (the word goes that there’s Belgian marble in St Peter‘s church in Rome)

The Dinantian Limestone

The Dinantian Limestone has been very rich in world class localities for Calcite, and to a certain extend remains as such.
In Biesmeree, Bioul, Denee and Haut-le-Wastia Calcite crystals (mainly scalenohedral habits) have been found that rival any in the world, especialy the ones found in Biesmeree where outstanding, large orange scalenohedrons that look very much like the ones from Elmwood, and no less in quality at that!
-An example of a Biesmeree Calcite from Paul de Bondt's collection: [www.mindat.org]
-A Calcite from Haut-le-Wastia from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-View inside a pocket I worked in 2007 in Haut-le-Wastia containing an exceptionally large Calcite: [www.mindat.org]
-Haut-le-Wastia quarry in 2007: [www.mindat.org]
Sadly most of the quarrying operations have ceased their operations and only the quarry in Haut-le-Wastia shows some sporadic activity.
A little bit to the east, north of Dinant (the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone!) there are several quarries.
Close to the abbey of Leffe (famous for it’s trappist beer) lies the Montorguill quarry, from there exceptionally large Calcites up to 40cm have been found in scalenohedral as well as rhombohedral habits, the quarry remains in operation and is run by the Gralex company.
-Large Rhombohedral Calcite crystals from Leffe, from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-A huge Scalenohedron found by Jose Dehove in 2007 in Leffe: [perso.infonie.be]
-A Leffe Calcite from Mikael Gonzales' collection: [www.mindat.org]
A little to the north some active quarries remain exploiting the dark compact limestone around the town of Yvoir.
The so called “Pierre Bleu” or “blackstone” is used for ornamental use.
Due to the compact nature of the rock very little cavities are encountered and when so they are usually very small, therefore the Calcites found in them are quite small but nevertheless very attractive.
To the west we encounter the town of Charleroi, a large somewhat decaying centre for mainly steel industry which flourished in the 19th and first halve of the 20th centuries but rapidly declined since the 1950s creating a large unemployed population, remaining so to this day.
Around Charleroi there are several active quarries and a multitude of closed ones.
Some of the best Calcites in the world (in my humble opinion…) came from two quarries that are situated closely together a couple of miles west of Charleroi.
One of them, the “la Sambre” quarry on the banks of the Sambre river in Landelies remains active whereas the other one, the Gralex quarry in Mont-sur-Marchienne ceased it’s operations about ten years ago.
The limestone in these two quarries is very pure and therefore very suitable for use in the glass, chemical and nutrition industries as well as for agricultural purposes.
In these quarries Calcites have been found in an extremely large variety of forms and habits, the crystals can be up to 20cm large and the colour ranges from colourless, yellow, orange, amber to dark brown.
In 2008 Calcite crystals could be found that showed a very distinct and appealing olive green colour, they remain a rarity.
-A world class Landelies specimen from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Nice clear prismatic Landelies Calcite from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Landelies Calcite from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-One of the olive green Calcites found in Landelies in 2008, from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-A typical Landelies piece from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-A big Landelies twin from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Typical Landelies twin from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-View of Landelies quarry in 2008: [www.mindat.org]
-A Calcite from Mont-sur-Marchienne from Jean Dehaye's collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Calcite from Mont-sur-Marchienne, Bill Morgenstern collection: [www.mindat.org]
Large pieces with big scalenohedrons as well as beautiful clear twins have been collected during the time when the Solvay quarry (a little south of Charleroi, between the townships of Loverval and Couillet) was still in operation.
-Here's a nice report about two of the very few collectors that were allowed to collect in the Solvay quarry during the time it was operated: [beautifulminerals.com]
Close to the town of Namur one also finds several quarries, the best Calcites of that area came from the Gralex quarry of Beez, although the quality of these nice scalenohedrons found in the 1980s has not been surpassed since.
-A Calcite from Beez from Paul de Bondt's collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Calcite from Beez from Rui Nunes's collection: [www.mindat.org]
Nice Calcites have also been found in the quarries of Sclayn and Maizeret both situated between Namur and Liege.

The Devonian Limestone

South of the Meuse river there is a large Devonian limestone plateau covering the Fagne and Famenne regions.
Especially nice Calcites have been found in the so called “Calestienne” region which covers a part of the Fagne and Famenne between the provincial towns of Rochefort (again famous for it’s trappist beer!) in the east , Couvin in the west and Givet (on the border with France) to the south.
The Calestienne region is very rich in Pb, Zn, Cu, Fe and Fluorite deposits and all of these have been exploited over the ages.
Nowadays the only exploitation is done on Limestone for building purposes.
Very nice Calcite crystals have (sporadically) come out of the quarries around the small village of Wellin, about ten km west of Rochefort.
Two quarries that are located only a mile apart from each other remain in operation, one of them, the “Fond des Vaulx” quarry can be visited after applying for an authorisation, the other one, the “Limites” quarry is closed for mineral collecting and therefore should not be visited.
Not surprisingly the two quarries show a similar paragenesis.
In 2005 they worked a zone with exceptionally large Brachiopod fossils that contained splendid lustrous colourless calcite crystals very reminiscent to the old specimens found in Cumberland.
Notable minerals that accompany the Calcites are especially Fluorite (in highly lustrous purple, yellow and sometimes green crystals), Celestine, Sphalerite and Marcasite.
-The best Calcite from the 2005 finds in Fond des Vaulx quarry, my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Other Calcites from Fond des Vaulx quarry from my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Calcite from Fond des Vaulx, my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-Butterfly twin accompanied by yellow Fluorite from Fond des Vaulx quarry, my collection: [www.mindat.org]
-A view of Fond des Vaulx quarry in 2007: [www.mindat.org]
Quite close to Wellin, on the banks of the Lesse river, we find the now closed quarry of Resteigne, from there abundant and very nice Calcite appeared as well over the years.
-Very nice Resteigne piece from Jose Dehove's collection: [www.mindat.org]
-View from Resteigne quarry towards the castle in 2004: [www.mindat.org]

Apart from the outstanding localities mentioned above some nice Calcite specimens occasionally came out of some other localities, I won’t mention them all but some should be noted.
In Engis, close to the town of Liege, very nicely formed Calcites where found in an array of forms.
Also Rhisnes produced nice Calcite in the past.
Around Antoing very large quarries sometimes deliver large scalenohedrons and honey coloured rhombohedral crystals.
-Nice Antoing specimen from Mikael Gonzales' collection: [www.mindat.org]
During the mining operations around Moresnet-Vielle Montagne abundant Calcite has been found although the dominant carbonate there was Smithsonite (and is famous for that mineral)

Interesting internet resources on Belgian Calcite:
-Jose Dehove's site: [perso.infonie.be]
-Jean-Marc Jonville's site: [www.calcite.be]
-Luc van Bellingen's site: [www.fossiliraptor.be]
-Michel Blondieau's site: [membres.lycos.fr]
-Marc Henrotin's site: [users.skynet.be]
-Jacques Evlard's site: [www.artistones1.be]
-CMPB (the Brussels mineral club): [www.cmpb.net]
-Strahlen.org: [www.strahlen.org]

Epilogue

But probably the best thing about prospecting for world class Calcite specimens in Belgium is that one can combine that with drinking the world famous Belgian beer!
-Hundreds of Belgian beers!!: [nl.wikipedia.org]

Harjo Neutkens 2009



Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2009 08:06PM by Harjo Neutkens.

Fantastic Harjo,

It's the best overview about Belgium Calcite I have ever read.

Ad fundum my friend.

Take care and best regards.

Paul.

Thanks Paul!!

Harjo,
You don't need a plea for such great information to be included about calcites from Belgium to be included in best minerals. We will beg to include it. What we need is for someone like you to organize it and write it up in more or less the same format as some of the better developed articles on some of the A minerals. Might you be that person? I have started a thread for calcites from Belgium and thrown in just a little bit of stuff to give you an idea of what you need to do. Just reply to that thread and put all your good stuff in there in a similar format. We will work it over and eventually Ill place it into the official article. If you can do that we will make you a moderator and you can place your work directly in any of the articles.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Peter,
I have created a thread for Swedish calcites. If you would like to format all that great information you have given us and place it in a thread posting we will work to get it into a suitable format for inclusion in the formal group of articles on calcite localities. If you will upload images of these calcites to mindat they can be included in the article.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Sure Rock, I can give it a try.
But could you tell me how to insert the photographs the way you did...?

Cheers

Harjo

Harjo,
Inserting the photos is easy. What I am putting below is copied from the introductory notes to the Best Minerals section.

1. The best way to import images into mindat species/localities/thread postings.
When you want to import an image into what you are writing in a thread entry you will click on the little tourmaline icon just to the left of the smiley face on the tool bar. This will insert (pic id=XXXX width=855][/pic) into your text. You will need to replace the xxxx with the photo ID number of the image you want to import. The picture you can import here is limited to those already uploaded to mindat. Find the image in the mindat image galleries. The number of that image is just below and to the right of the image. You can select it, copy it to your clipboard and then paste it in place of the XXXX. You can control the size of the picture by adjusting the 855 number. If you want a smaller image, change the 855 to a smaller number like say 600. If you want a larger picture, type in a larger number. If you want the picture to be centered you type in float=center. If you want the picture to be on the left or the right you change center to left or right. You can also add a caption if you want by typing it between the brackets ][. Like ]Aluminium, Moon[. However if the caption is a bit long, it will somewhat distort the frame around the image and I prefer to add the caption as I have described it just below in #2..

If you will read through the introductory notes in the Welcome to Best Minerals it should acquaint you with other information you may find helpful in generating content. It took me months to figure out that the bulletin board threads could be used in a Wikipedia format to generate these kinds of articles and then more months to learn how to insert the images and to refine the format into something reasonable. Then more time to convince Jolyon and the other managers to create this forum. Just recently David Von Bargen and Jolyon stepped up and made it easy to insert images, control their size etc by the method described above, which is just days old.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

One correction, you do not have to type float=center, if you leave out the float parameter, the photo will be centered. You only need to put float=left or float=right if you want it positioned that way.

I figured that one out, thanks nevertheless David.

Cheers

Harjo

Hello Harjo,
About your message of March 10th ...
In order to complete your excellent and detailed report about calcite, some specialists of the local quarries in the vicinity of Charleroi ( B ) must be noted.
Indeed some MMers of 4M (Association des Micromonteurs de Montigny le Tilleul - http://www.quatrem.be/ ) have a very very long experience in Mont-sur-Marchienne and Landelies collecting (> 25 years).
Two "reference” books concerning the various forms of calcite of theses quarries were published a few years ago and periodically released.
I heard new and particular forms were discovered this year ! ! !
Please contact them for more info.
Some new specimens ‘ll be available during the International Exchange days - 7 & 8 november 2009 in Montigny le Tilleul.
Thank you for sharing calcite experience.
Gerard
http://users.skynet.be/BEAMM-Desk/index.htm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2009 01:13PM by Gérard DECLERCQ.

Hi Gerard,

Thanks!
Yes, you're right, I should include the books by Francis into the article, I'll ask Rock what he thinks of it when I include literature references in the article, up to now I only included web pages, and Jean-Marc Jonville's site covers most of the Charleroi stuff.
I'll send Francis, Michel and Alain an e-mail this evening asking for extra info.

Amicalement,

Harjo

p.s. You will see some of my Belgian Quartz photos in the 4M journal this year ;-)

You are on the right track. Get as many other people working to help you as you can get. Though their responses will often mean extra work for you, the article will be better and stronger.
Rock



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2009 01:33AM by Rock Currier.

Hello Harjo,

Thank you for reply.
I see moreover to have been involved in publication of 4M Magazine, you are also an epicurian.

So, to complete the documentation for people collecting in Belgium, some pratical recommendations can be find here after.
Sorry, we don’t have sufficient quarries in the vicinity of all suppliers of our liquid phase local materials. Nobody is perfect.

I suggest to all fans who ‘ll seat after work in quarries to have the hereunder check-list in the car.

1/ Fundamentals + Directory
You can easily collect in Belgium +/- 700 belgian species (I don’t have the last release of inventory)
http://www.belgourmet.be/fr/bieres/index.php
http://www.epicurien.be/epicurien/biere_alpha.asp

2/ Glossary : BE CARE
Trappist is not Abbey beer : Officially, On Earth, only SEVEN Trappist beers can be find everywhere in the world with this name, but their approach ask respect and strictness (please)
http://www.trappistbeer.net/
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bière_trappiste

3/ Type Locality (TL) of Trappist
* 6 rare specimens are brewed in Belgium (3 in Flemish Region, 3 in Walloon region).
* The ultimate seventh WAS brewed in Netherland ! ! !
http://bieres.du.monde.free.fr/Fiches/Reportage/Trappiste/article.htm

4/ A return of experience
http://www.plaisirdoffrir.be/biere/lestrappistes.php

5/ Description of products
A wide varieties of forms, colors, aspects, properties, ....
Only one habitus : cylindrical or balloon glas habitus

6/ Tooling & Process
Take a seat (absolutely)
Normally No additional lenses are required for the microscope.
Operation : open one bottle at the time
Observe smoothly your new calcite findings /or exchanges
The results : exceptional : you discover the 4th dimension

7/ Health / Safety rules
Don’t drink and drive

8/ International Keywords
Cheers – santé - alla salute - salud – prost - proost – saúde – skål –
http://blog.youwinemotion.tv/index.php?post/2008/01/28/100-x-cheers

9/ More information ?
Don’t be afraid, come to open the discussion on 7th & 8th Nov 2009
http://users.skynet.be/fa450477/body_bourse.html

Regards
Gérard

Merci bien Gerard!!

Quote
Gerard
The ultimate seventh WAS brewed in Netherland ! ! !

, be oui, La Trappe, seulement un petite dix minutes par voiture de mon village!

Amicalement

Harjo