Franklin unknown minerals and locations?

Hello all,

A friend bought a refrigerator at a yard sale. Upon opening it at home, it was filled with lapidary supplies and minerals. He kept the lapidary and gave me the box of rocks. Some of the rocks/minerals were labeled, most were not. The whole specimen is 6.5cm across. I'm thinking that this one contains zincite (the red blobs) and willemite (peachy colored-fluoresces bright green) in calcite (fluoresces pink). Could the gray metallic be franklinite? Can anyone help me pinpoint a more precise location other than the Franklin District?

Thanks,
Jen



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2008 10:18PM by Jennifer Nemitz.

What a place to keep minerals!

The red does look like zincite and the peach/bright green is probably willemite.
Typically with my Franklin stuff I try to narrow down the exact locality by finding similar looking material from the area here on Mindat. Sometimes I can narrow my guess down to two places but it's still a guess.

Hi Jennifer, can you put a UV light on it? Willemite will fluoresce a bright green. The calcite *may* fluoresce an orangish red. Zincite has no fluorescence. If the specimen is from the Franklin District, it would most likely be from either Franklin or Sterling Hill. They are less than three miles apart. Although I live close, I am not enough of an expert to make a guess as to the source.

Hello Jennifer....your calcite/zincite/willemite(?) looks like the other half of a specimen I acquired many years ago, labeled "zincite in calcite, Franklin, New Jersey".....even the size matches (but my specimen lacks the probable franklinite bleb). Fluorescence is brilliant!!!

Hope this helps!!

Don S.

Hi

I think that the metalic luster mineral is Franklinite. But some peach areas of the specimen are probably Sphalerite, this mineral from Franklin is very special giving an LW UV red response, very rare from Sphalerites from other locations. Bye