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.

One of these days I am going to get back into mineral photography. For now this link is just accumulating information.

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.

Some of the folks who commonly attend the micromount meeting:

• Richard Flagg - Genius Metallurgist, now retired.
• Mark Ascher - Works on top secret defense projects.
• Steve Weibel - Sly dog and outrageous field collector.
• George Stevens - Famous Arizona mineral collector and ex-mineral dealer.
• Ron Gibbs - Professional geologist and expert on New Mexico minerals.
• Kenny Don - Expert photographer and electronics genius.
• Dick Thomssen - Elite micromounter and renowned exploration geologist.
• Bob Jenkins - Internationally known geologist and superb mineralogist.
• Joe Ruiz - "The Judge", and namesake of ruizite.
• Sugar White - Famous photographer of microscopic minerals.
• Bob White - puts up with all of us.
• Tom Trebisky - your truly.
• ... and many others

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).

This page is a collection of links that will doubtlessly grow into something else as time goes on.

• Mindat mineral database.
• Strahlen.ORG.
• The Handbook of Mineralogy - online!.
• Tucson Gem and Mineral Society.
• The Mineralogical Record.
• Webmineral.
• Mineralogical Society of America.

• U of A Geosciences.
• JMOL.
• Jmol, IUCR, and enhanced figures
• Webmineral and JMOL.

Collecting Locations:

• New Mexico.
• Arizona.

Dealers:

• Shannon and Sons.
• Mineralogical Research Co..
• Arkenstone (Rob Lavinsky).
• The Vug (Justin Butt).

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.

• RRUF website.
• RRUF info (same as above).
• IMA mineral list from RRUF project.
• American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database.
• RRUF software downloads.

Dr. Bob Downs has also made available some software (for the Windows platform) for drawing crystal structures, and manipulating Raman and Powder diffraction data,

• RRUFF project software

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:

• Fettelite study

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:

• Clara mineral list

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.