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Improving Mindat.orgMinerology:
21st Jun 2012 19:19 UTCJ Goodman
21st Jun 2012 22:32 UTCDon Saathoff Expert
Spelling errors aside (there are thousands on this database), a "crash course" in mineralogy is not possible....anywhere, anytime. It is a far to complex field of study. Understanding environmental conditions conducive to petrogenesis, understanding the chemistry involved in petrogenenis in those environments, understanding field techniques for the identification of various petrogenic environments etc, etc might be covered in a years worth of "Geology 101"
Then we'd have to move on to "Mineralogy 101" to understand crystallography, crystal chemistry, mineral identification techniques and MASTERING those techniques, understanding the whys and wherefors of physical characteristcs of the various mineral phases, etc, etc.
Then we'd have Petrology, Geochemistry, Sedimentology, Volcanology, Structural Geology, Paleontology etc, etc.
ALL of this goes into a basic understanding of Mineralogy - further understanding requires a life time of personal research in a field of Mineralogy which has grabbed you. I have hunted, collected and studied minerals for 60 years but I cannot and will not consider myself a Mineralogist - I'm just a somewhat knowledgeable rockhound and that after 60 years on the outcrop and 4 years in the University. And the old adage is absolutely true: "The more I learn, the more find I don't know!!!"
Don S.
21st Jun 2012 23:25 UTCRick Dalrymple Expert
Don is absolutely right. You don't learn "rock hound" mineralogy in an academic class anyway. Even when you take all the classes Don suggests, you aren't really capable of walking into the desert and looking at every rock and understanding what you are seeing. Visual identification is an art that takes decades to become proficient at. And even then it is subjective and is only good to a point.
People are always asking me for a book that will help them identify all the rocks and minerals they find in the desert. They want one with pictures of all the different types of agates, petrified wood, and all the minerals around mines in one easy-to-glance-through book. And they are always unhappy when I tell them that such a book doesn't exist.
End result is you have to do a lot of research on your own.
22nd Jun 2012 01:29 UTCGary Moldovany
22nd Jun 2012 04:12 UTCBart Cannon
I took my mineralogy classes in 1969 and 1970. My fellow geologists hated the mineral identification part of the coursework.
They were never able to identify more than 15 of the 50 minerals in the tests.
Then when they became geologists it got worse.
Mineral identification is more than a skill. Classification is a distinct brain behavior (or disorder) associated with an obssession for looking very carefully and remembering characteristics and names. It takes a lifetime, as others have pointed out.
It's the only thing I'm good at, but these days with the new nomenclature there is no way to classify a mineral other than quartz or galena with the eyeball.
Rocks are even harder to identify.
Bart
22nd Jun 2012 08:40 UTCRock Currier Expert
22nd Jun 2012 11:37 UTCDanny Jones Expert
22nd Jun 2012 11:39 UTCBart Cannon
"Mineralogy for Amateurs" is still bringing in money, but I agree that it is the best book on the subject. And has been for at least 45 years.
Maybe Marjorie might not need the money, and maybe Mindat wouldn't hurt the sales of such a well distributed hardcopy publication.
Have you talked to her lately ?
My first mineral book was the "Golden Book", but my love and fascination with minerals expanded with Fred Poughs' field guide. I looked at it every day and the color photos still represent my notion of the ideal example of each species even though some of them are actually terrible examples.
A true mineral person does not have a nomral mind Every one of them I know is an eccentric, but by the same token a very interesting person.
Bart
22nd Jun 2012 13:07 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager
22nd Jun 2012 13:57 UTCJohan Kjellman Expert
cheers
22nd Jun 2012 14:09 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder
Jolyon
22nd Jun 2012 15:28 UTCAlex Homenuke 🌟 Expert
A good old textbook like Sinkankas, Dana's Textbook or Manual, plus an encyclopedia type mineral book with lots of color photos will be helpful, but Mindat and other internet sites are really all one needs.
22nd Jun 2012 19:16 UTCHans2
Bart, you brought back some memories when you mentioned the "Golden Book". My parents must have bought this for me when I was about 8 or 10, around 1962. I pored over that little book, hoping I could someday acquire minerals like the illustrations. The Pough book I acquired a few years later - it's still on my bookshelf, a bit tattered, but a dear possession. And, I must have checked out the local library's copy of Dana every few months - light reading for a pre-teen...
My biggest thrill was when my Dad took a couple of to Beryl Mountain, in South Acworth, NH, probably in 1963 or so. At the time, you could still see beryl crystals over 6" in diameter embedded in the pegmatite exposures. They looked like green telephone poles!
College brought me Sinkankas' "Mineralogy for Amateurs" - I went to college a bit later than most.
I don't think there is such a thing as a crash course in mineralogy. You read books; look at minerals whenever/wherever possible; you buy them or collect them (and try to identify); you destroy unimportant pieces of mineral to test for hardness, solubility in acid, fusibility; you look at them under a microscope. And you start memorizing classification schemas, learn some crystallography, some mineral chemistry, maybe study ore deposits or metamorphic rocks to see how different minerals occur in different environments...
Sounds exhausting, doesn't it? But over time, your ability to "see" minerals becomes more acute - you see shape, color, luster, associations, etc, that somehow the brain translates into "Ah, that's quartz", or "That looks like it could be a sulfosalt". And, locality knowledge - just knowing where the mineral is from - comes into play as well.
Others on this thread are correct - this takes years. It's worth it, though!
Best,
Hans
22nd Jun 2012 23:06 UTCBart Cannon
Rudy Tschenich somehow uploaded his entire zeolite bible to Mindat.
How on earth was that done ? Was the whole thing a Word file ?
560 pages with images. How do you have the storage space ?
Hans,
Your point about the locality info for mineral ID is right on. That's where I start.
Bart
22nd Jun 2012 23:25 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder
23rd Jun 2012 00:03 UTCLou Rector
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/earth-atmospheric-and-planetary-sciences/
Lou
23rd Jun 2012 00:04 UTCJohn Lichtenberger
tattered but still intact... life was simpler then...
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/auplater/Pough.jpg
note the naive check marks next to index entries... as if I was going to collect one of each entry... (right)
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/auplater/poughIndex.jpg
John L.
23rd Jun 2012 04:58 UTCDavid Garske
It still "scares" me when I can instantly identify a minute crystal or cleavage, still trying to figure how I can do it. I go along with the rest of the writers, handling minerals, looking at photos, knowing chemistry, localities, etc. is essential.
At the rate that the IMA is changing nomenclature, we may have to date labels to prove that the name we use was valid at that time.
Dave
23rd Jun 2012 22:34 UTCNorman King 🌟 Expert
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