GeneralAlpine locality help
I am looking for some help from anyone with knowledge of German language and Alpine localities.
I recently purchased online a nice specimen of Clinochlore that the dealer described as coming from "Campo Tencia, Ticino, Switzerland". The piece arrived with a previous collector's computer-printed label written I believe in German, "Campo Tencia Tl unterh. Gletscher". The "Tl" is printed as it appears here; like a pi symbol with the right side clipped. Is it t-i? t-l? t-1? A large piece of pie? ;-)
I do not wish to criticize the dealer at all. I believe that the dealer labeled this piece as best he could given the information he had. I am hoping that someone out there could shed more light on "Campo Tencia" as it is not a recognized locality in MinDat. What is the translation of the original label into English?
I've attached a couple photos. The piece is 6 x 4cm and the two clusters in the detail are each about 7mm across.
TI stands for Ticino i.e. Tessin, it is a swiss County near to Italy.
See www.campotencia.ch for some Info about the location.
Unterh. Gletscher means below glacier.
In the swiss central alps You can find something nearly everywhere.
That is my explanation why Switzerland is not so perfectly covered in mindat.
But Google might help...
Stephan Hi Jeff,
I think this mindat locality meets it best .
Look at the map, you will find all
Joachim In addition to the replies given by Stephan and Joachim I want to say that Campo Tencia, or more precisely, Pizzo Campo Tencia is a well-known mountain in Ticino. I think there was a report about some finds at the mountain in german Lapis Magazine not so long ago - I have to check later.
A precise map can be found here. If you zoom into the map you can see that there is a glacier located on the northern slope of the moutain named "Gh. Grande di Croslina". So maybe that's the Location that is meant with "unterhalb Gletscher - below glacier".
It's a nice sample for clinochlore by the way.
Cheers
Hartmut 
The "Tl" may be the symbol for a hut. Thanks to each of you for your insights!
Stephan: The website you steered me to has a wonderful photo (http://www.campotencia.ch/tencia.php?l=i) of the Capanna Campo Tencia and the Pizzo Campo Tencia which helps me to understand the layout of the land.
Joachim: Yes, the Piumogna Valley page probably is the closest MinDat local to date for this locality.
Hartmut: If you ever find that Lapis reference I would love to hear about it. The map you suggested is graphically beautiful and also helpful to visualize the locality.
Uwe: Your hut (capanna) idea makes the most sense to me. I had not thought of that! Brilliant!
So my label will now read, "below the glacier on Pizzo Campo Tencia (Campo Tencia Mountain), Piumogna Valley, Leventina, Ticino (Tessin), Switzerland" Jeff,
the article I was thinking of, is in Lapis June 2013 issue. It's a report from Stefan Weiß about a find of quartz crystals on the south western slopes of Pizzo Campo Tencia. Maybe that's a different (sub)locality than the one where your piece comes from, because there is no glacier. But it shows that Pizzo Campo Tencia has some mineralogical potential. And so there is no doubt that your clinochlore is really from that mountain.:-)
Cheers
Hartmut
