September 4, 2020
Minerals are an old passion for me. They have led me deep into old mines, to far away places (The University of Chicago), and have in general been a lot of fun.
My particular interest is in micromounts. Not that other (larger) minerals are not interesting and important, but this is what I do and enjoy.
I am getting back into mineral photography, and keeping a record of what I am doing on the web.
We in general talk about collecting minerals. It is interesting to discuss what it means to collect anything and to examine some of the motives for doing so.
I find crystallography fascinating and incredibly useful, and provide some notes here.
X ray crystallography gets into lots of exciting mathematics.
I have some information here.
Optical mineralogy is useful, but you need to have a petrographic microscope.
Sometimes mineral collecting is benefited by serious tools, like blasting equipment.
I live in Tucson, and regularly attend the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society micromount group meetings These meetings take place at the "clubhouse: at 3727 E. Blacklidge. This is between Grant and Fort Lowell and east of Dodge. The micromount group meets the second Monday of each month all year long at 6:30 PM.
You probably do not want to visit the TGMS Website. It is one of the poorest websites on the planet No doubt somebody knows somebody and gets paid good money for this miserable and incompetent effort. I would be harsher in my evaluation, but it is a nice day and I am in a generous mood.
Some of the folks who commonly attend the micromount meeting:
The full society meets the first Monday at 7:30 PM, but not the month of the show (February), and not June, July, or August (there are potlucks instead).
The Tucson Gem and Mineral Society has meetings at the "clubhouse: at 3727 E. Blacklidge. This is between Grant and Fort Lowell and east of Dodge. The micromount group meets the second Monday of each month all year long at 6:30 PM. The full society meets the first Monday at 7:30 PM, but not the month of the show (February), and not June, July, or August (there are potlucks instead).
Shannon and Sons Minerals:
3816 E. Encinitas Ave. Gilbert, AZ 85234 480-927-1862 480-225-1272 michael@shannonsminerals.com
The U of A is pioneering the use of Raman spectroscopy for rapid mineral identification.
Dr. Bob Downs has also made available some software (for the Windows platform) for drawing crystal structures, and manipulating Raman and Powder diffraction data,
As an example (maybe not the best, but an example anyway) of the use of the Raman technique for minerals, is this investigation of probably Fettelite from the Imiter Mine:
An amazing source of microminerals is the Clara Mine in Germany.
Several books have been published (Minerals of the Clara Mine).
There is supposed to be a website somewhere ....
Here are some links:
Here are some tips about how to do library resource in the geosciences, somewhat specific to using library resources at the University of Arizona. Go to the library web site. Under "search and find" use the Article and Database Searching link. The "Geo Ref" database is the first choice, but you can also try "GeoBase".
Another way to get at all of this is to go to "Subject Guide" and select Geosciences, this should get you the Geosciences library Resources page, which will (under "Finding Articles"> give you links to GeoRef, GeoBase, and Science Citation Index.
Also under Articles and Databases, you can look up Dissertations and Theses. There are two links for University of Arizona Thesis, and a link to Full Text stuff handled by ProQuest at other institutions.
Tom's Mineralogy Info / tom@mmto.org