In this forum we hope to create articles with pictures about all the good specimens of gypsum from all the good gypsum 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 gypsum locality(s), 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.
Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2009 05:15PM by Rock Currier.
. Some fine crystals continue to be found around Paris. Parts of the city are underlain by underground gypsum mines (largely abandoned I believe). This 16-centimeter twinned crystal was dug up in the Montmarte District during installation of an underground electric cable in about 1997. A higher resolution image is posted on Mindat at [http://www.mindat.org/photo-236492.html].
