I am similarly having problems. Can't do a mineral search. The Mindat connection stalls until it times out.

Debbie, Alfredo, A good question. Do we have any foitite photographs on Mindat that are identified/supported by a valid analysis given the complexity of identification? I'm not trying to be smart. As the owner of a small foitite specimen from I believe Namibia, it's in storage at the moment, I ...

David, As you well know, you can contact me through Mindat anytime you wish.

Getting back to the original inquiry I think an assay of the "new silver strike' claimed to be 25% silver would be more to the point. This is the primary claim that is being questioned. Since the "new strike" is available and unmined and claimed to be available in quantity, a sample should be ...

Mark, I checked The Mineralogy of Pennsylvania Part I, by John Eyerman, published in Easton, PA, 1889. It's title page states "To be used as a supplement in connection with Dr. F. A. Genth's Preliminary Report on the Mineralogy of Pennsylvania, 1875." In a Table on page 47 of the original ...

My information comes from Pennsylvania Geology Vol.36, No.1 2006 put out by the PA DCNR. It is available on the web at "http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/pub/pageolmag/pdfs/v36n1.pdf". Primary mining was for lead during and immediately after the civil war.

According to the literature, the ore was reported to contain about 10 to 16 ounces silver per ton. Never heard of "25 percent silver" either. It should be pointed out that the mine was operated as a lead mine for the galena present. I visited the site a couple of times in the early 80's; took the ...

Hi All, For what it is worth there was a mill at the Fission (Richardson) Mine that was built about 1931 or 1932. I have seen the mill ruins. Radioactive minerals occur in the calcite fluorite apatite veins but also in the pyroxene syenite pegmatite. Some minor quartz has also been reported ...

Olav, It's possible, but the sample submitted for analysis consisted of semi-transparent pink blades originally embedded in a tremolite matrix. So the "transparent pink blades" may be either anthophyllite or manganocummingtonite, etc. John

To solve this dilemma I sent a sample of the specimen to John Attard for analysis. Results of the analysis indicate that the specimen is in fact anthophyllite, not parvowinchite or manganocummingtonite. Accordingly it appears that short of an analysis, identification cannot be made with certainty ...

Reiner, I tend to agree with Keith and Alfredo. Many collections contain specimens from the George Earl farm and many of us have samples from the current roadcut. I think we need to preserve the two locations. I like Alfredo's suggestion of making the two roadcuts sublocalities, as I believe the ...

Reiner, My understanding is that the original deposit was 0.1 km past the Sunset Cottage Road turnoff when traveling from Wilberforce. I believe the current roadcut is about 0.3 km past Sunset Cottage Road. This would put the old location close to the current road cut. The old guides recommended ...

Knut, Back in the early 1970's and perhaps earlier, the McCoys (husband and wife) owned a rock shop just west of Quadeville and more importantly they owned the two beryl quarries in the area. These quarries were also called the Wal-Gem east and west quarries. The east quarry is now known as the ...

Mark, Yes that is rhodonite with andradite garnet and a nice color combination at that

Jolyon, I would prefer to see both sites listed separately for clarity for collectors, but as long as the CN Dump locality name remains searchable (with a redirect to the Golding-Keene locality), and the Golding-Keene locality describes the location of the CN Dump then consolidation would serve ...

Dean, I agree with you. Frankly this provides no benefit to the advancement of science; indeed is not science and is just another unusable classification system that doesn't fit the real world. A new classification system should at the very least show where existing species fit in the new system ...

Hi Stephen, I usually add additional sodium bicarbonate to my Super IronOut solution to keep the odor down. This can raise the pH of the solution above 10. Under these conditions copper and zinc carbonates and oxides will dissolve. The solution without bicarbonate addition is about pH 5 which is ...

Alfredo, I use white vinegar too. Most recently to liberate gahnite crystals from calcite matrix for some Sterling Hill material. I have had the same problem so I usually just soak for about two or three days max before I clean and change out the solution. If I can't replace the solution ...

Brandon, I'm afraid there are few (actually no) areas to collect in western pennsylvania. There are areas in NE Ohio where selenite crystals occur, but they are all on private property or park land. There is an old quarry in west central Pa that has massive fluorite, but it is also long closed ...

Personally I have no problem listing exact coordinates to historical sites (read exhausted, built over, etc) on a public forum, but not productive/active sites. I have seen too many sites pillaged. It is disingenuous to state that exact locations should be recorded for all sites on Mindat when ...

I agree with Dan and David. I have had first hand experience with both private collector/dealer pillaging of sites and government "rehabilitation" of mines/collecting areas to make them "safe" for me to enjoy. As a result I tell no one about locations I have found with the exception of a trusted ...

Michael, I just checked Carl Bosiak's, Rock Collecting Guide, Bancroft and Madoc Area, 1971. On page 8 he lists corundum, sodalite, and cancrinite as being found at the Goulding-Keene Quarry (his spelling). He was the owner of the Princess Sodalite Mine at the time which is located nearby. So I ...

Michael, Corundum occurrences are documented very near the Golding-Keene quarry in the nepheline gneiss; so corundum is entirely possible. I would think it less likely at the CN Dump since this is nepheline that was crushed and sorted for transport to the mill. Any corundum and other waste rock ...

Michael, Yes I am aware of that. I was referring above to the references for mineral species for the Goulding/Golding-Keene quarry. Might Goulding be the local spelling/misspelling? Leach and Peterson guides use "Goulding-Keene" spelling. However, D.F.Hewitt's Geological Guide Book No.3, ...

Hey Everyone, I'm late to the discussion, but I would like to share something regarding this subject that I learned this past spring talking to Dr Skip Simmons of the University of New Orleans at the Maine Pegmatite Workshop. The "eureka blue" (deep blue) tourmaline unearthed at Newry, Maine in ...

Reiner, Michael, I checked my copy of GSC Miscellaneous Report 39, 1988 reprint and there is no mention of either autunite or meta-autunite for the Goulding-Keene Quarry on page 15 or anywhere else for that matter. This is the reference cited for their presence on Mindat. Next I checked ...

Alfredo, Michael, and Van, Looking at the reorganization of the Bancroft area I think we should include the Eagle's Nest occurence and the CN Dump under the town of Bancroft as these sites are within its borders. The CN dump in Bancroft, as I am sure you are aware, is material from the ...

I completely agree.

Knut, Unfortunately I do not have a copy of the referenced Rocks and Minerals Issue. So I can't be much help there. I have no problem editing the mineral names on my photos, but please edit the site info first so the photos will be consistent. Leake (1997) does state that tirodite = ...

Just to clarify manganocummingtonite, parvowinchite, and tirodite all refer to the same mineral. See Mindat under parvowinchite and webmineral.com under manganocummingtonite.

Rudy, Alfredo is correct. You can use iron wire in place of platinum. You just can't use a piece more than once. Buy yourself a spool of unalloyed iron wire from a piano/musical instrument parts/supply business. It is inexpensive. There is at least one such company on the Internet. The unalloyed ...

Reiner, Matt, Actually metallic zinc can be substituted for metallic tin and will still give the same result. Last time I checked the cheap Chinese batteries sold by Sears in their tool department were still the old zinc casing carbon rod type. Take apart the battery and use the metal casing. ...

Dan, I will take a stab at this one. There is no problem stabilizing specimens which for various reasons are likely to fall apart as long as the stabilization is noted on the label or by some other means to anyone interested in purchasing the specimen. This way those who have no problem with ...

Ken, A small butane pencil torch can be used in place of the blowpipe cited in classical methods for fusing the mixture. Use the oxidizing portion of the flame but it doesn't really matter because heating the fusion product in nitric acid will oxidize any phosphorous to phosphate.

Hello Jyrki, Another possibility is hyaline opal (hyalite). It typically will fluoresce a bright green in shortwave UV caused by the uptake of a small amount of uranium. It is often virtually invisible on close examination in visible light yet will produce the vivid green on exposure to UV. I ...

Hi Dennis. If the iron staining was actually iron minerals mixed in with the quartz you may have removed the iron and left behind a porous coating of quartz which would look white or gray. If the gray/white coating is quartz you will not be able to remove it with scrubbing or acids other than ...

My take on reading Section 3.6.1 is that the paper states that melanocerite - (Ce) is likely tritomite - (Ce) and tritomites may be britholites, but additional data/study is needed to determine these possibilities.

Jolyon, Indeed, but it is more complicated than that. Even the original mineral crystals are not homogeneous. As the crystals form, the melt chemistry is constantly changing as minerals crystallize and remove various ions from the melt. As a result the availability of ions capable of ...

One of the problems long vexing mineralogists and the mineral community is that many of the pyrochlore group minerals are metamict. The practice of annealing minerals to re-establish some crystal structure has been criticized due to the uncertainty surrounding whether the annealed structure ...

With all due respect to Pavel and his work, I think I have to agree with Reiner. If "zero valent dominant pyrochlore" is the best the proposed new nomenclature can do for the betafites and strontio-, bario-, cerio-, yttro-, bismutho- and plumbopyrochlores then I believe the naming scheme is fatally ...

The IMA can't seem to be consistent in their approach and like a bull in a china closet keeping flailing about creating more damage and confusion with each new edict. For example, first suffixes are pronounced as the new dogma and then with the new pyrochlore nomenclature suffixes are dropped and ...

Steve, The test procedure below should answer your question. The ammonium molybdate can be purchased at hydroponic gardening centers and the nitric acid is available online from a number of suppliers. Reagents/Materials Needed: Ammonium Molybdate solution: Dissolve 0.10 gram ammonium ...

Paul, Just as an addition to Rock's advice. If you add some baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to your Super Iron Out solution you will still get the cleaning effect but with a lot less odor. I use one part baking soda to one part Super Iron Out and it works well for cleaning iron stains off most ...

Sorry I didn’t see this sooner. The White Elephant Mine is referenced in “200 Mineral Locations in Southern Ontario” by Harley Leach no publication date but estimate 1960s or early 1970s publication date. It is listed in the location index on page 90. It is not listed in the guide itself ...

Hi Reiner, I think we can agree to disagree. If the crystals have been altered and contain lathes of uranothorite I think it is open to interpretation whether one calls them thorite or uranothorite variety of thorite. One might even consider them uranothorite pseudomorphs after thorite which ...

Satterly (ODM,Vol.LXV, Part 6, 1956) notes, "The crystals (Kemp thorite crystals) are in part altered, replaced by silica, or contain long laths of black uranothorite." Based on this description and the fact that uranothorite is a variety of the thorite species, I would think that either desciption ...

David, Thank you. I found it and set it accordingly.

Malcolm, I don't usually chime in on these types of discussions, because it just isn't productive. This isn't a public forum protected by free speech, and yes no moderation would be chaos. However, if I posted a question here and instead of an answer I was told to "go read a book" and by that ...

When I login and go to Control Center and select Forum settings the flag selection option does not show. The top selectable option is the time zone. No flag option is available. Also when I am on the control center page and try to login I get the message that my account does not exist; yet I can ...

Rob, Sorry but I can't give you an exact number. I have a couple of old pieces that I used to demonstrate the tenebrescence with and my kids played with that are exhausted; white rock with no color change under UV exposure (these have not been heated or otherwise altered). Fresh pieces that I ...