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Improving Mindat.orgPossible wrong location for Goethite

10th Jul 2012 00:51 UTCJohn Sobolewski Expert

Photos 236987 and 236992 do not look like any Goethite I have seen from Mibladen. They look very much like the lustrous botryoidal Hematites from the Irhoud Mine, Morocco. John S.

10th Jul 2012 01:06 UTCDavid Garske

I bought a flat of these at the Tucson Show last year. From the top they look like botryoidal Hematite, polished, but from the side they have the typical brown radial texture of Goethite, check the streak.

Dave

10th Jul 2012 02:27 UTCJohn Sobolewski Expert

That is exactly how the Hematites from the Irhoud Mine look. They are naturally lustrous on top and have a radial structure just like both Hematite and Goethite can have. The steak is reddish-brown and not the lighter yellow-brown or ocher-yellow streak indicative of Goethite. Furthermore, there is no water of condensation upon heating in a closed tube which indicates Hematite rather than Goethite. Look at the Hematite photos on Mindat for the Irhoud Mine.

I have been buying these for many years from many different Moroccan dealers at Tucson who have given me a variety of locations from Middelt (it happens that is where they lived) to Bou Azzer, Touissit, or just plain Morocco, which indicates that those dealers did not know the location and were just guessing. To get more accurate information on the location of Moroccan minerals, it is best to ask full time dealers like Victor Yount or Horst Burkhart who specialize in nothing but Moroccan minerals. That is how I found out years ago that they were from the Irhoud Mine and not from where the Moroccan dealers told me. John S.

10th Jul 2012 14:13 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

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