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GeneralWhat are the most notable Mineral discovery's to date with pictures or detailed decriptions like the 1978 Jonas Pocket

8th Mar 2012 23:37 UTCRyan Lay

Hi Everyone,


I was wondering what people knew about notable pockets or discovery's of Minerals in History. A lot of us know about the Queen Mine in 72, with how many shiny caps? and how many non shiny caps int he next pocket over? or the Jonas Pocket in 1978 but how much did it yield? were they clean in the pocket? Did someone buy the majority of the pocket? The Adamites from Mexico, was that one large pocket? and what year? etc... Chumar Bakoor Discovery of the best Fluorite's ever, How many were in the pocket etc?


Thanks and Im interested in any find ever and as detailed as can be without turning to fiction..

9th Mar 2012 13:05 UTCRock Currier Expert

Often it is not to the advantage of the owners or miners to reveal the exact contents of notable pockets of specimens. Often miners will make off with a substantial percentage of the specimens that are then sold on the side. Perhaps the owner or owners want to keep the best specimen(s) and the remaining specimens will bring more money if the buyers think they are getting the best. Some times there are multiple owners and the one involved in doing the mining will keep some on the side that the other investors know nothing about. Also there is the tax man to consider and if you advertise just what and how much you have found the tax man may come knocking looking for money for the general fund. For example, near Pune at Wagoli the quarry owners have a license to extract basalt for so much per unit weight, but that license does not include Cavansite or other minerals, so it is much better for them not to make know just what it is that comes from their quarries other than basalt.


I believe the adamites at Mapimi were not restricted to a single pocket, but rather many good pockets, of which many were collected and sold by the miners and the mining company who was running the mine had little or no knowledge of.

9th Mar 2012 18:00 UTCAnonymous User

The recent Brazilian minerals book (don't have the title in front of me) has pretty detailed stories of many large pocket discoveries. I suggest you look into that.

10th Mar 2012 00:36 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

Bryan Lees does a pretty good job of documenting his specimen collecting activities.

10th Mar 2012 00:58 UTCRyan Lay

Thanks Everyone,


The crystals from the cleft system was an awesome display, I was lucky enough to have gotten to see that display in Munich. I was more curious if anyone had any info on these discoveries? I have read what Bryan has put out, Im looking for more personal tales.. The combat mine Cerussites? When did the Aqua/Schorl Sandor piece come out? was that a single pocket with only that in it?


Easter Pocket, Tsumeb

Sapo Blue tri color pocket earlie 2000ish

Diann's Pocket Mt Antero Co

Pariaba Find in Brazil

Pink Calcites from China a couple years backk in 2008ish

Tree Root Pocket

10th Mar 2012 01:05 UTCDaniel Levesque

Ryan,

Gary Freeman offers descriptions and photos of his mining The Orchard Pit and Mt. Mica of Oxford Co, Maine, USA at
.

This site describes his exploits from 1997 through 2008 and is as good as it gets. You won't be dissapointed.


Regards,

Dan

10th Mar 2012 02:21 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Penny's pocket at the Rogerley mine?

10th Mar 2012 03:01 UTCMalcolm Southwood 🌟 Expert

Ryan,

You mention the Easter Pocket from Tsumeb, and the discovery of that last great find of azurites from Tsumeb is well described in Gebhard's second Tsumeb book (the one that's in English). But in my opinion, the Easter Pocket ranks only number three among the named Tsumeb azurite pockets.


Top of the list (for me) would be the Gordon/Kegel discovery in 1929. Gordon's description of how these pieces were collected was reproduced in the Mineralogical Record (1978, vol 8 (3), pp 51-53). It makes excellent reading, because it captures the atmosphere of the mine, some of the attitudes of the time, and Gordon's description of his journey and his efforts to procure specimens has the feel of a pioneering adventure about it.


In my view the number two Tsumeb azurite discovery was the Perkins Sams pocket, so-called because Texas oilman Sams bought the entire find, sight-unseen, for what was a very substantial sum back in the early 1980s. Most of these pieces went to Museums - including several to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The crystals from this find are partly replaced by malachite which may detract for some people. Personally I think they are truly magnificent.


Interesting topic!

mal

10th Mar 2012 09:52 UTCPeter Lyckberg Expert

Ryan, have a look in Gem and Crystal Treasures as a start and American Treasures, the MR articles and so on as a start, then as you do speak to people. There are so many more great finds, some known, some little known. Depending on where the "spectacularity bar" is set and then limited to those deposits you may be able to find out about.


When it comes to N Pakistani aquamarine finds in pegmatites, usually pockets have contained many crystals, but as you know, if a great find, there is every dekade one great specimen in a pocket of many.

When it comes to Chumar Bakhoor, there have been several very good pocket w fluorites.


In older times in Brazil and even into recent time, some pockets have yielded some incredible specimens. DT flawless lilac Fluor apatites (yes I still call them that) never shown or on the market. As Rock is stating, many finds are kept low key, some finds are in principle never known or seen on the market. The finder may wish to keep all, or may only let go of a few samples to close friends or to people who really can appreciate and understand the interest, quality, rarity of a find. Many miners and field collectors only exchange their best finds.

Many finds of great crystals went into the gem industry and consequently crystals were chopped in pieces, cut and put into jewelry or in a vault at a gem dealers office.


Even today pockets are bought unseen! which is a very risky business.

How about buying this pocket! Big size tourmaline crystal, like grass color, sitting on mother rock. No clean coming easily. Many like broken pieces. This size mothere rock with quartz and size tourmaline top flat cut is like tee cup. Other side diamond cut. Some crack downside, not coming loose. No picture possible. Specimen in mine. You want to buy this?


One bag 30 kg morganite beryl from small mine near Valadares. Price X per kg. Buying?


A pocket like the Jonas rubellite is as you know indeed exceptional. Probably the greatest specimen and gem crystal find ever known. Huge quantities of superb rubellite were facetted. Jonas broke of 10-15 cm gem pencils from the matrix pieces to put in bags with cutting rough! The best color is just fantastic and rarely seen. I have heard about the find from 4 of the first people who mined and saw the pieces.


Yes, Kombat is for sure one of the GREAT finds. Others are Staraja Mylnitsa, Volodarsk, Kongsberg (yes great pockets known!), Karelia Beryl Mine, Malmberget, Broken Hill, Tanzanite 1, Golconda (several mines and several great finds) and on and on.

10th Mar 2012 18:16 UTCJoseph Polityka Expert

Hi,


This is such a broad topic that it would be impossible to list all of the most important mineral discoveries; although I agree with Peter that the Jonas Mine discovery, as of now, ranks at the top of modern day finds.


I often wonder what mining engineers thought when they found the outcrops of ore at Tsumeb's Green Hill, Bisbee, Cornwall, Langban, Franklin, Michigan's Upper Peninusla and at other famous mines around the world. How about the geologists that found the diamond-bearing pipes in Australia and Canada in recent times?


Thanks for starting an interesting topic, Ryan.


Best wishes,


Joe

11th Mar 2012 01:28 UTCGeoffrey Small

In terms of great tourmaline finds, Jane C. Perham's Maine's Treasure Chest: Gems and Minerals of Oxford County contains very interesting and detailed accounts of discoveries at famous locations throughout Maine. Also, Peter Samuelson's Chasing Rainbows describes his many collecting experiences in the mountains of New Hampshire. While I still have yet to read the latter, I have seen some of his finds (Including a huge blue topaz crystal)- fascinating. I highly recommend the two.

11th Mar 2012 04:08 UTCLuiz Alberto Dias Menezes, Fo.

The book "Minerals and Precious Stones of Brazil" contains the history of the most famous Brazilian pegmatite pockets; besides the full description of the discovery of the Jonas pocket, you can find there the history of the 3 major tourmaline pockets at Sapo mine (one of them was the pocket of the blue-caps), the huge find of gem kunzites and giant quartz crystals at Urucum mine (1998), the huge spodumene-bonanza (mostly kunzites, but also hiddenites and multiple-colored crystals) at Jairo mine Resplendor, Minas Gerais (1990), and the whole history of the discovery of Paraíba tourmalines, among several others. Therefore, you will not find statistics of the total amount found in each pocket, because, like Rock has said, the miners and mine owners don't like to tell the truth about this matter.

15th Mar 2012 22:15 UTCRyan Lay

I love chasing Rainbows!!!! Such a good book!!!!

27th Mar 2012 19:37 UTCVincent Rigatti

A lot of great replies and source information has been mentioned. The MR is a great resource of famous finds, geology and locals across the globe.I also like American Mineral Treasures. I will throw out the Sweet Home Mine in Alma , CO as one of the greatest of the last century, with many magnificent pockets of some of the worlds best Rhodochrosite. It was mined on and off for many years but some of the best came out in the mid 90s to early 2000s. Now permanently closed off. The MR special issue on Sweet Home is fantastic with a complete very detailed history of mining and famous pockets.
 
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