Discussions

╳Discussions

Groups

Recent Images in Discussions

PhotosCelestine specimen is not from Bell's Mill

20th Jan 2022 02:31 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

This specimen https://www.mindat.org/photo-1147703.html exhibits the typical blackish grey matrix found at the New Enterprise Quarry, Roaring Spring, Blair Co., PA, not the typical pale tannish grey matrix at Bell's Mill, Bellwood, Blair Co., PA.

Celestine from New Enterprise has been readily collectable in recent times, so this piece had either lost its original label and was ascribed to Bells Mills based the Celestine form alone, or perhaps deliberately mislabeled, to pass it off as a much older specimen from the Type Locality at Bellwood.

20th Jan 2022 17:04 UTCEd Clopton 🌟 Expert

If it's definitely mislabeled, I'll fix it. I just went by the dealer's label. I was not aware when I purchased it that it was (potentially) a type-locality piece; I just thought it was a cool specimen.

20th Jan 2022 18:52 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

It is a nice example of these unusual fibrous celestines, but that very dark matrix is unique to the New Enterprise Quarry occurrence. There are several other fibrous celestine occurrences, an older locality in Huntington Co. Pennsylvania, just across the border from Bellwood, in the Calico District, San Bernardino Co, California, and at Dornburg, Thuringia Germany.

Celestine at Bells Mills was the first Type Locality from Pennsylvania. Identified and named "schwefelsaurer strontianite aus Pennsylvania" by Martin Klaproth in 1797, back in the early days when the new element strontium was first being recognized. Fine euhedral crystals of celestine from Italy were already well known, but were long assumed to be Barite.

21st Jan 2022 22:24 UTCEd Clopton 🌟 Expert

O.k., fixed. Thanks for the heads-up.