Rocksaholics

Aisha and Arif from Rocksaholics pulled out some hidden treasures for me to show in this report - and despite having an expensive specimen stolen at the show (please see the messageboard for details) it's no suprise with specimens such as these that they were still able to keep smiling:



Here is Arif showing us a phenomenal undamaged tourmaline from Afghanistan. This was without doubt the most impressive specimen I saw at the Inn Suites show, and amongst the very top of the specimens I have seen anywhere at Tucson this year.



.. and a close up of the specimen:

Jordi Fabre

Following up on yesterday's report, here is a quick video of one of the Argentinian Hematite pseudomorphs after Magnetite.

tucson2008-hematite.flv

Konstantin Buslovich

A quick video showing the huge Dioptase we showed in a photograph yesterday. The colour is a little off in this video - the colour is classic Dioptase Green.

tucson2008-dioptase.flv

Dehne McLaughlin

Dehne had brought a good selection of Australian minerals with him, including this fine Molybdenite from Wolfram Camp.



Dehne also had a selection of the new find of Stolzite specimens from the Kara mine in Tasmania:



And finally, an enormous 25cm Zircon crystal from the 'Mud Tank' Carbonatite in the Northern Territories, Australia - this came from the pegmatitic portion of the carbonatite, and the Zircon shows some areas (on the reverse) where competition for crystal growth distorted the faces, but the sample is highly impressive regardless!

Earth's Treasures

One pleasant surprise at the show for those interested in odd minerals, was the nice cache of Carpathite crystal sprays in and on matrix from Los Pichachos, California - offered by Rick Kennedy of Earth's Tresures at a very reasonable price. Carpathite is an unusual organic mineral found in veins with Cinnabar.



Here's a photo of Alan Hart and Mike Rumsey from the Natural History Museum (London) and myself, hunting through the flats finding the best pieces.

Geodite

Geodite had some very unusual new Fluorite specimens from Okoruso, Namibia - new forms which they called 'fluorite dice' - these were very popular and the best specimens had already sold by the time I reached their room.

Matrix India

Matrix India had some very large and very interesting Scolecite groups. What I liked about the specimens from Matrix India is that they put the full latitude/longitude of the site on their specimen labels, so if you buy a specimen you can zoom in on Google Earth and see the very hole (usually a well) where your specimen came from!

Great Basin Minerals

Great Basin had a superb new find of Fresnoite crystals from California, including this one:



... and this group of crystals on matrix:

KARP minerals

KARP had many interesting minerals, including some fine Burmese Tourmalines - but this one was my favourite, even though the crystals were smaller than most of the other pieces, their lustre, shape and colour reminded me of bubble-gum stuck to a rock - very aesthetic!

The Vug

Justin and Brandy from The Vug were doing much the same as myself, wandering around taking photos and trying to promote advertising to the mineral dealers. Here is how Justin looks after talking to mineral dealers for days on end.



Next report - the TGMS show - opens tomorrow, I can't wait!