ncat ANK MSH126 Rhodochrosite, Aegirine, Poudrette quarry, Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada

Deep sharp red-brown rhombohedral crystals, one perched on aegirine crystal. There are also colourless reticulated crystals below right of centre. Maybe albite? One small area on top of rhodochrosite (not in photo) fluoresces orange. Ex Noel and Ann Kennon Collection. Ex Jean Pierre Beckerich. Width of view 11.5mm. Stack of...

ncat ANK MSH147 Calcioburbankite, Petersenite-(Ce), Siderite, Hilairite(?), Poudrette quarry, Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada

As with many MSH specimens, you don’t always know what you’ve got! White to tan calcioburbankite on hexagonal prismatic petersenite-(Ce). Many of the brown crystals, the lighter ones, are siderite, but some, the darker brown ones, fluoresce orange, maybe hilairite? There are tiny thin plates of an unidentified mineral that...

ncat RB Gold, Ecuador

Labelled simply “Plateau Mining Co., Ecuador”, this specimen came from a collection acquired by Richard Bell. Obviously, Plateau Mining Co. isn’t a locality, but a company, so the starting point is simply Ecuador. After a bit of searching, I came across a mining professional, Byron Granda, who at one time...

ncat ANK MSH71 Pectolite, Phlogopite, Poudrette quarry, Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada

Phlogopite pseudohexagonal plates on prismatic colourless pectolite. Pectolite crystals have zoned fluorescence, pink with blue caps. Ex Noel and Ann Kennon. Ex Jean Pierre Beckerich. Width of view 5.75mm. Stack of 60 images. Comparison image width of view 11.5mm. Click on the images below for a higher resolution version. For...

ncat ANK MSH123 Epididymite, Franconite, Analcime, Muscovite, Pyrite, Albite, Poudrette quarry, Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada

Colourless twinned epididymite with cream hemispheres of franconite(?), with tiny silver pseudohexagonal muscovite, and tiny pyrite crystals, minor albite, all on analcime. There is also a prismatic hexagonal crystal of epididymite pointing down to the bottom left just below the yellow arrow. Ex Noel and Ann Kennon Collection. Ex Jean...

ncat ANK MSH100 Hilairite, Gaidonnayite, Poudrette quarry, Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada

Type Locality for hilairite. Brown hilairite with colourless/grey twinned gaidonnayite. Hilairite fluoresce green under longwave UV, but gaidonnayite doesn’t appear to respond. Ex Noel and Ann Kennon Collection. Ex Jean Pierre Beckerich. Width of view 11.5mm. Stack of 114 images. Click on the image below for a higher resolution version.

ncat ANK MSH1 Ferrokentbrooksite, Poudrette quarry, Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada

Small orange crystals. Originally labelled as kentbrooksite, but probably ferrokentbrooksite and most likely collected before that mineral was described as a new species. Ex Noel and Ann Kennon Collection. Ex Jean P Beckerich. Width of view 5.75mm. Stack of 42 images. Type Locality. Click on the image below for a...

4002 Ferrimolybdite, Quartz, Dravite, Bischoff Extended (West Bischoff; Wheal Bischoff), Waratah, Waratah district, Waratah-Wynyard municipality, Tasmania

Collected 2/2005. Brown prismatic tourmaline crystals, visually identified by Ralph Bottrill as dravite at the time of collecting, but not analysed to my knowledge. Probably better described as dravite-schorl series. Width of view 11.5mm. Stack of 49 images. Click on the image below for a higher resolution version.

ncat TQ Dolomite, Rum Jungle, Northern Territory

Labelled “Rum Jungle Copper Mine”. Drill core segment 48mm in diameter from the 1960s. Dolomite crystals in a cavity. The Coomalie dolomite/magnesite dolostone is Precambrian and includes vuggy recrystallised zones (from metamorphic recrystallisation), and formed from stromatolites. It underlies some of the Rum Jungle mines. Click on the image below...

2337 Desautelsite, Artinite pit, Picacho Peak, New Idria Mining District, San Benito Co., California, USA

Orange crystals. Width of view 11.5mm. Stack of 40 images. Desautelsite is named after Paul Desautels (1920-1991), well-known mineral micromounter and Curator of Gems and Minerals in the Department of Mineral Sciences of the U.S. National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) in Washington, DC. Click on the image below...