BRITISH MICROMOUNT

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NEWSLETTER No. 86 - JUNE 2012

CONTENTS

Branch News 2

Haslemere Educational Museum 14

Roy Starkey Reports 15

Due Diligence 18

An International Rescue 19

20 The Last Word

Getting to Grips with Crystallography 3

CrystallographyCrystallographyCrystallographyCrystallography

ExplainedExplainedExplainedExplained

2 BMS Newsletter 86

OFFICERS - CONTACT DETAILS

CHAIRMAN Martin Stolworthy

Homeview, 1 Richmond Place, Lyng, Norwich, Norfolk. NR9 5RF

VICE-

CHAIRMAN

Dick Belson 11 Waldemar Avenue, Hellesdon, Norwich, Norfolk. NR6 6TB

SECRETARY Phil Taylor Dunvegan, 96 Kingsfield Road, Kintore, Inverurie, Aberdeen. AB51 0UD

MEMBESHIP

SECRETARY

David Binns 3 The Dene, Hastings, East Sussex. TN35 4PD

TREASURER Greg Towning

7 Denver Road, Topsham, Exeter, Devon, EX3 0BS

NEWSLETTER

EDITOR

Mike Dannatt

The Laurels, Garden Court, South Chard, Chard, Somerset TA20 2QX

SYMPOSIUM

ORGANISER

Martin Gale 2 Coles Cottages, Rectory Road, West Tilbury, Essex. RM18 8UD

SYMPOSIUM

ORGANISER

Greg Towning

7 Denver Road, Topsham, Exeter, Devon. EX3 0BS

SYMPOSIUM

ORGANISER

(Displays etc.)

Rob Selley Flat 3, Over Garage, Paynters Lane, Illogan, Cornwall. TR16 4DJ

The views and opinions expressed in this Newsletter are those of its correspondents, and are not

necessarily agreed with, or shared by the Editor, the British Micromount Society or its

Members. The accuracy of submissions is the responsibility of the authors and will not

necessarily be checked by the Editor for validity

BRANCH NEWS

DEVON & CORNWALL: The remaining meetings in 2012 will be on September 8th and December 1st. SUSSEX BRANCH: The next meeting will be on October 26th - Theme – Members’ 10 Favourite Specimens

BMS Newsletter 86 3

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH CRYSTALLOGRAPHY

John Pearce

I discovered how difficult it is to think in 3D - translating 2D diagrams into three-dimensions, when, in a previous life, I attempted to teach stereochemistry to students. As long as you used a very limited range of examples students could, for example, deduce from a molecular structure that a chemical compound could exist both as left and right-handed molecules. However ask about a chemical outside the standard range and considerable gaps in their

understanding were quickly revealed.

I have also felt very sorry for geology students who are often introduced to mineralogy (or even geology) through a consideration of crystallography; different crystal systems, second order prisms, basal pinacoids and Miller

indices etc. It is enough to make you drop out of any course!

In complete contrast John Hall ran a session for 12 members of the Sussex branch of the BMS which focused directly on how crystallography can help one to identify minerals alongside a specimen’s, colour, lustre, cleavage, associations, locality and crystal habit. The following are my notes of what

John told us.

He started by demonstrating basic symmetry using an empty Talisker whisky bottle box (which he described as a "tetragonal epimorph that has formed around a cylindrical amorphous silica substance with an interesting liquid inclusion). By inserting a vertical rod (axis) through the centre of the square-sectioned top of the box, John demonstrated that the same perspective appeared four times per revolution - i.e. four-fold symmetry corresponding in this case

to the tetragonal system.

Having established this basic idea of symmetry he also indicated that while many crystal axes are at right angles, some are inclined at an angle. John had produced a 4 page document giving background to the various crystal systems,

but we were anxious to get started looking at micros under our scopes.

John had produced 7 trays of micros (two for isometric and a combined one for the monoclinic and triclinic) each containing 6 micros from the same crystal system. I have extracted the notes which accompanied some of these specimens to give a flavour of what we examined down our microscopes. Space has only allowed me to include a small number of examples from each of the trays and obviously the notes are limited by not being accompanied by the

corresponding micros.

4 BMS Newsletter 86

Isometric (Cubic) System Minerals

Three axes of equal length, all at 90° to each other produce crystals that are theoretically of identical proportions about all 3 axes. The term ‘cubic’ can be misleading as they are seldom in the form of a simple cube. The key thing about their symmetry is that it is identical whichever axis is used for rotation.

Taking the above example of three common isometric habits (see Figure 1 page 9.), although each has a different number of faces, (6, 8 and 12), whichever of the 3 axes is used for rotation their axial symmetry is constant, being repeated 4 times in one revolution, (4-fold symmetry). Visually for collectors, this all adds up to isometric system crystals appearing to have a high degree of

symmetry from whatever direction the crystal is viewed.

Hexagonal System Minerals (see Figure 2)

Apart from 2 rather obscure classes in the hexagonal system, which have one 3-fold axis, all five other classes are based on the six sided (hexagon) habit. These have 3 equal axes at 60° to each other in one plane and 1 vertical ‘c’ axis at 90° to these, that may be longer or shorter. This produces crystals that are normally hexagonal in outline when viewed along the vertical axis, and therefore have a 6-fold symmetry when rotated about this axis. However, more complex crystals may have additional prism faces but the total number of these faces is always in multiples of six, as in the beryl crystal illustrated in Figure 2.

Species Description

MAGNETITE Shiny black octahedrons typical of this species. An octahedron is an eight-sided solid, with each face being an equilateral trian-gle. As is common in minerals a couple of crystals show asym-metric growth, with each group of four faces failing to meet in a point. But however much the crystal appears distorted the angle between adjacent faces remains the same.

PYRITE Nice specimen of pyritohedral crystals, a common habit of py-rite, each crystal having twelve, five sided (pentagonal), faces. Like most isometric minerals they can easily be seen to belong to that system, as they appear much the same when viewed from any direction.

BOLEITE Sealed box

The lid on this box is sealed, as the specimen is rather vulner-able. This perfect cube seemingly proves that some specimens do occur as near-perfect crystals.

BMS Newsletter 86 5

The crystals may be terminated by hexagonal pyramids, part pyramids or combinations of pyramids (domes) of varying steepness, often with part of the top or bottom faces of the prism (the basal pinacoids) still visible(see Figure 2). As with the prism faces, any of these similarly angled terminal faces of a hexagonal system mineral must be six, or multiples of six in number, as in the above beryl crystal. These may not necessarily be aligned with the hexagonal prism faces, but, apart from the two rather obscure classes mentioned above, the ‘six’ is a critical diagnostic factor for a hexagonal system mineral. Some trigonal system species, such as calcite and quartz, may appear hexagonal, with six sided prisms and pyramids, but on closer inspection can sometimes be seen to only have a 3-fold symmetry. Also some non-hexagonal system minerals, such as orthorhombic aragonite and witherite and monoclinic leadhillite, can produce twinned crystals that have pseudo-hexagonal outlines so it is important to consider other visual clues to increase the chances of correct identification.

Trigonal (Rhombohedral) System Minerals

This system is closely related to the hexagonal system, with its 3 equally spaced axes in one plane and 1 axis at 90° to these, the difference being that trigonal system symmetry is based on a rhombohedral structure rather than the hexagon. A rhomb may be likened to a cube that has been squeezed across two diagonally opposite corners, which results in opposite sides still remaining parallel but with the angles between any two adjacent sides being either more or less than 90° (see Figure 3). Many minerals, such as calcite and other carbonates can have crystals with this simple rhombohedral form, but species belonging to this system may also occur in what appear to be hexagonal prisms of variable length. These are probably best described as a combination of two three-sided prisms, with alternate ‘hexagonal’ faces belonging to each of these

Species Description

GMELINITE Water-clear hexagonal prismatic crystals, many with a waisted appearance, that are terminated by low hexagonal pyramids.

PYROMOR-PHITE

Pale-green equant hexagonal crystals. The faces of the hex-agonal prism may vary slightly in size but the angle between adjacent ones remains a constant 120°, or, more crystal-lographically correct, an interfacial angle of 60°.

EWALDITE In a cavity near the centre of the specimen there is a small pale-yellow crystal of ewaldite, a rare carbonate of barium, calcium, yttrium, sodium and potassium. The specimen needs to be tipped to see the crystal’s characteristic stepped hexago-nal outline.

6 BMS Newsletter 86

in turn. Therefore, they only have a 3-fold symmetry rather than the 6 of the hexagonal system. This can be more easily appreciated if one examines their terminations, as in the trigonal dipyramid in Figure 3, where, although there appear to be 6 sides to the pyramid, alternate ‘pyramidal’ faces are not the same, so the same view of the crystal only occurs 3 times in one revolution. Prismatic crystals of the common species quartz and calcite often show this 3-fold symmetry about the vertical axis.

Tetragonal System Minerals

Two axes of equal length at 90° to each other and 1 vertical ‘c’ axis at 90° to them, but of a different length, in other words, a cube that has been either stretched of flattened in one direction. Because tetragonal crystals have a square cross-section they have a 4-fold symmetry, or multiples of 4, about the ‘c’ axis. Many tetragonal minerals, such as wulfenite, may occur as tabular crystals, which are in effect very short prisms or truncated bipyramids, but, theoretically, always have a square outline when viewed down the vertical ‘c’ axis (see Figure 4). The terms dipyramid and bipyramid are interchangeable but dipyramid is used as a crystallographic term with bipyramid being used as a general description of the shape.

Species Description

CALCITE Near-transparent colourless rhombohedral crystals, a common habit of calcite. The rhombs do not always have the same out-line, due to a wide range of interfacial angles. Some can look flattened, with very acute and obtuse angles, while others are almost cubes. The orange material is an iron oxide coated ear-lier generation of calcite.

CHABAZITE In the shallow cavity at the top of the specimen there are what appear to be colourless cubes. However, chabazite is not an isometric (cubic) system species but belongs to the trigonal (rhombohedral) system. This identification problem arises be-cause the interfacial angles of the crystals are close to 90°, which emphasises the need to take other factors into account before jumping to conclusions in naming the specimen. There-fore, as the matrix of this specimen looks like a basalt, because of the crystal-lined cavities (vesicles), the mineral could well be a zeolite, which it is.

BMS Newsletter 86 7

Orthorhombic System Minerals

3 axes at 90° to each other but of different lengths, like a matchbox, therefore they can only have a 2-fold symmetry when viewed along the vertical ‘c’ axis, or any of the axes for that matter. Unlike a square tabular tetragonal crystal, a tabular orthorhombic one will show a general rectangular outline when viewed down the ‘c’ axis as in the baryte crystal in Figure 5.

(Table continued on page 8)

Species Description

WULFENITE Excellent example of simple thin tabular plates of tetragonal crys-tals. They show the large square basal pinacoids and small an-gled pyramid faces. These being identical on every side help to separate it from the orthorhombic system, where usually only opposite sides are the same.

APOPHYL-LITE Sealed box

A crystallographer’s dream. An example of how very small crys-tals can be near-perfect. High (30x min.) magnification shows a tabular perfectly square tetragonal crystal showing the basal pina-coids (top and bottom), 2nd order prism (4 sides), ditetragonal (3rd order) prism (the two small faces down the short corner edges) and 1st order pyramids (the small triangular faces on the 8 top and bottom corners). One doesn’t need to know all this of course; it is the 4 fold symmetry about the vertical ‘c’ axis through the top and bottom faces that identifies the crystal as being tetragonal.

Species Description

BARYTE A shallow cavity filled with sparkling tabular micro-crystals of baryte. Several orthorhombic minerals, such as baryte, occur as tabular crystals of varying thickness with the vertical ‘c’ axis passing through the thinnest part of the crystal rather than being the longest axis, as many people assume. The larger creamy crystals are cerussite which is also an orthorhombic species.

LIBETHENITE Short prismatic crystals. Because the angles between the faces of both the prism and the terminations are within a few degrees of each other it is quite difficult to tell which axis is which. These crystals may be prisms that are shorter than their width, but their 2-fold symmetry is still clear.

8 BMS Newsletter 86

Monoclinic & Triclinic Systems Minerals

Monoclinic System

There are 3 axes of different lengths, two, the ‘a’ and ‘c’ axes meet at 90° but the ‘b’ axis is inclined. Crystals belonging to the monoclinic system are often difficult to determine but they are usually in the form of a prism which generally has at least two pairs of parallel faces but with an oblique termination right across the end of the prism. Laumontite and vivianite are good examples. The names of some species of monoclinic minerals actually begin with ‘clino’, eg. clinoclase and clinoptilolite, indicating their inclined nature.

Triclinic System

There are 3 axes of different lengths none of which is at 90° to the others. Like monoclinic crystals they are tricky to identify. They are often complex with faces that do not meet at right angles, with many either ‘sharp’ or ‘blunt’ edges and corners. They do, however, usually have two parallel opposite faces somewhere in the mix. Their identification is made even more difficult because certain forms or twins of some species, such as both the monoclinic and triclinic feldspars, may look very much like orthorhombic system minerals.

(Continued on page 13)

Species Description

HEMIMORPHITE

Characteristic crystals of hemimorphite. As can be seen from the termination and prism faces visible on the specimen only a 2-fold symmetry is possi-ble when the crystal is rotated about an axis pass-ing down its length, i.e. similar views only occur twice in one revolution. Although not visible on the specimen, the crystal terminations of hemimor-phite are different at either end of the prism, see diagram; hence ‘hemi’ (= two) and ‘morph’ (= forms).

BMS Newsletter 86 9

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Cube Octahedron Dodecahedron

(Fluorite) (Magnetite) (Garnet)

Simple hexagonal prism Prism & part-pyramid Complex crystal

(Apatite) (Pyromorphite) (Beryl)

Rhombohedron Trigonal Dipyramid

(Calcite rhomb) (Calcite scalenohedron)

10 BMS Newsletter 86

Figure 4

Figure 5

Prism Dipyramid Prism and Pyramid

Tabular crystal

(e.g. Wulfenite)

Prism Double Rhombic Pyramid

Tabular baryte crystal

Construction of the Hemerdon link road in progress. (See story page 16)

BMS Newsletter 86 11

An unusual cross-shaped growth of siderite with calcite and galena. (No. GM.7.948),

sadly with no locality data, but possibly from the North Pennines.

Gemmy red garnets in pegmatite from Garve, Ross-shire (No. GM. 7.957), presented

by Mrs Webb, 1925.

The photographs on this page and the next relate to the article about Haslemere

Museum on pages 14 and 15.

12 BMS Newsletter 86

A nice specimen of malachite (No. GM. 8.100), from the historic Peak Downs Copper Mine in Queensland, Australia, presented by Dr. T. Wakefield and showing the importance, and durability of glueing a locality label onto the specimen.

See: http://www.cqhistory.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Places/ PeakDownsCopper

A nice small example of the black schorl tourmaline (No. GM.6.614) from the famous Woolley Farm occurrence at Bovey Tracey, Devon, showing the characteristic included

apatite.

BMS Newsletter 86 13

At the end of each of our meetings, John asks for suggestions for a theme for

the next meeting. At the last meeting, there was little response and it was John

who suggested an introduction to crystallography. It was by far the most

ambitious theme we have tackled and it took John over 3 weeks to work up the

specimens with accompanying explanatory notes. However it was almost

certainly the most absorbing and beneficial session we have had where we

learned a great deal and, possibly for the first time, recognised that

crystallography can be a useful and practical tool for mineral collectors.

Thanks to John, this excellent session was greatly enjoyed by those present all

of whom learned a lot.

________________________________________________________________

For more information on crystallography see the following web pages.

http://www.rockhounds.com/rockshop/xtal/part1.shtml http://www.gemologyproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=Crystal_Systems http://webmineral.com/crystall.shtml

Species Description

GYPSUM Crystals of monoclinic gypsum with typical angled faces.

LAUMONTITE Monoclinic white prisms with oblique terminations. Single crystals of laumontite are invariably of this form, even when twinned the angled faces are very prominent.

AXINITE A classic triclinic system mineral. The large flat faces have a parallel one on the opposite side of the crystal but all the smaller faces are other than 90° to these, or each other.

14 BMS Newsletter 86

HASLEMERE EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM – AN INTERESTING

PLACE TO VISIT

Roy Starkey

The Museum was founded in 1888 by Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, a famous Quaker surgeon, initially as a private venture in his garden barn based around botany, geology and social history. He established a revolutionary new role for museums by emphasising the importance of education for everyone. Hutchinson encouraged the open display of artefacts. He believed that people could learn as much through their hands as their eyes. This was in great contrast

to other museums with their sealed cases and "do not touch" signs.

The Museum moved to larger premises in 1895, and again to its present home at the end of Haslemere High Street, in 1926. Today Haslemere Educational Museum is one of the largest Natural History Museums in central southern England with over 240,000 specimens, along with over 140,000 Human History

artefacts from around the World.

There are three permanent galleries for Geology, Natural History and Human History artefacts, and three temporary exhibition rooms, a library and a

dedicated education room for people of all ages.

In April of this year, the Museum hosted a special meeting of the History of Geology Group (HOGG) of the Geological Society of London, dedicated to the life and work of Sir Archibald Geikie who was closely associated with the

Museum during his retirement years.

Sir Archibald Geikie was Professor of Geology at Edinburgh from 1871-1882, and subsequently, in 1867, he became Director of the Geological Survey of Scotland, and was appointed Director General of the Geological Survey of

Great Britain in 1882, a post he held until his retirement in 1901.

You can read more about Geikie here: http://www.haslemeremuseum.co.uk/geikie_files/Geikie/leaflet.pdf

and the informative Museum website has plenty of general information about the collections, opening times and facilities.

http://www.haslemeremuseum.co.uk/index.html

Having booked my place at the HOGG meeting, I decided to contact John Betterton who works on a part-time basis at the Museum in the capacity of Curator of Geology to see if it might be possible to spend some time looking at the collections “behind the scenes” on the day prior to the HOGG meeting. John very kindly made the necessary arrangements and was on hand to

supervise my visit.

BMS Newsletter 86 15

The mineral collection is quite extensive for a provincial museum, with over 5,000 specimens, mostly from British localities. As might be expected, this is a very diverse mix of common minerals with the odd rareity thrown in, and varying from well crystallised examples through to reference “lumps”. The minerals are housed in good quality wooden cabinets, labelled in card trays, and

catalogued in a computer database.

There is also a small display of around 50 mineral specimens in the Geology Gallery showing varieties of quartz, and a selection of sulphides, native elements, oxides, carbonates, halides, sulphates, phosphates, molybdates,

tungstates, arsenates and silicates.

Incorporated into the Museum collections are several historical collections of

note. These are the Richards, Hawkshaw, Geikie and Lee collections.

There is not space here to go into a lot of detail, and in truth, you really need to make an appointment with John to get a proper look around, but I have included a few photographs to give you a flavour of what is on offer (see pages

11 and 12) .

ROY STARKEY REPORTS

Dealing with the Backlog

I guess that like many of you, I have a substantial backlog of material awaiting “processing”. The thrill of the chase, the fun of actually collecting something, and a lack of time “back at base”, all conspire to create the “opportunity” which is “the backlog”.

The run of several weeks of fine weather in March encouraged me to venture out to my rock store and do some tidying up and sorting. I looked at the tray labels, all neatly reorganised a few years ago when I replaced my thirty year old shed, previously moved from Dudley to Redditch and then from Redditch to Bromsgrove, which had finally succumbed to that process known as floor-rot, and felt a twinge of guilt. How could it be that I still had a tray of zeolites in basalt from Rubha na h’airde Glaise, near Portree, collected in 1982, that I had not even LOOKED at? Well, the explanation for this phenomenon is probably similar to the reason that I also had trays of material from Callow Hill Quarry in Shropshire, dating back to SEVERAL different trips in 1997 and 2003. 1997? That’s, well, er, 12 YEARS ago, and it seems like only yesterday. Ah, well, the Callow Hill stuff there is some excuse for because it requires time-consuming solvent cleaning to expose the beautiful gemmy sphalerite micro-crystals from beneath vile sticky black hydrocarbons, (anyone who wishes to defend the rights of “vile sticky black hydrocarbons” - please write to the Editor - yes, he is THAT short of material!).

16 BMS Newsletter 86

BUT what about the tray of fabulous quartz breccia studded with gemmy midnight-blue microcrystals of anatase from Dolyhir Quarry - that’s (only) July 2006 - a mere six years ago.

Well, I have to confess that I felt the urge to DO something about this state of affairs. Over the course of several weeks of bright dry weather I gradually worked my way through some twenty trays of material from all over the UK, and dating back decades, and thoroughly enjoyed myself into the bargain.

You will all recognise the feeling of excitement as you apply the trimmer to a piece of matrix and BANG, a crystal-lined cavity never before seen by man is laid open to examination! I had a whale of a time processing this stuff, firstly just blowing off the spiders and cobwebs to expose the potential, and then gradually working my way through the size-reduction process and microscopic examination to “high-grade” the material into a smaller array of pieces worthy of further cleaning and checking / selection.

This whole exercise has not only generated a lot of potential collection specimens, and duplicates, plus a heap of empty WOODEN tomato trays, ready for re-filling this summer, but there is a substantial suite of super surplus stuff, which will be winging its way to the Stoneycroft Hotel in September - book your places now!

Hemerdon - as reported in Paydirt.

Promising news on tungsten came from a recent conference in Beijing, which highlighted European prices averaging $490/mtu and possibly exceeding $500/mtu in 2012.

Wolf recently secured £55 million of debt from three globally recognised leaders in mining project finance so this year could well be when the company’s share price climbs back to a high not seen since listing in February 2007. The company explained that they needed to secure their revenue by winning a contract for about 80% of their production for the term of the debt. The company has already signed agreements covering 80% of Hemerdon’s expected average annual tungsten concentrate output for a period of five years - a period which could be extended. This represents a significant milestone in the development of the Hemerdon Tungsten Mine.

The project will be mined via open pit with first ore expected in late 2013, before it ramps up to full-scale production of 345,000 mtupa tungsten trioxide and 450 tpa of tin by mid-2014. A contract to design, construct and commission the new processing plant and associated infrastructure has been put out to tender with submissions expected back shortly.

Construction of the 600m link road has progressed since its start in late February, with the road scheduled to be completed by July of this year. This road is solely

BMS Newsletter 86 17

established to benefit the community with only about one or two trucks a day on the road.

Bournonite from Herodsfoot Mine

Readers may be interested to know that after over a year of both field and library research, an article about this famous Cornish mine will be published in the Mineralogical Record for July/August 2012. The project has benefitted from the input of a number of BMS members and is profusely illustrated. The article contains a lot of historical information and photos of specimens from both public and private collections, and should be of interest to anyone who collects British minerals. If you are not a subscriber, you will be able to order the publication direct from the Mineralogical Record website:

http://www.minrec.org/issues.asp?pubyear=2012

Recent Papers of Interest in the Mineralogical Magazine

Hawthorne, F. C., Cooper, M. A., Abdu, Y. A., Ball, N. A., Back, M. E. and Tait K. T. Davidlloydite, ideally Zn3(AsO4)2(H2O)4, a new arsenate mineral from the Tsumeb mine, Otjikoto (Oshikoto) region, Namibia: description and crystal structure. Mineralogical Magazine, 76, 45-57.

Rumsey, M. S., Krivovichev, S. V., Siidra, O. I., Kirk, C. A., Stanley, C. J. and Spratt J. Rickturnerite, Pb7O4[Mg(OH)4](OH)Cl3, a complex new lead oxychloride mineral. Mineralogical Magazine, 76, 59-73.

Williams, P. A., Hatert, F., Pasero, M. and Mills S. J. New minerals and nomenclature modifications approved in 2011. Mineralogical Magazine, 75, 2549-2561.

Macdonald, R., BagińSki, B., Upton, B. G. J., Pinkerton, H., MacInnes, D. A. and MacGillivray J. C. The Mull Palaeogene dyke swarm: insights into the evolution of the Mull igneous centre and dyke-emplacement mechanisms. Mineralogical

Magazine, 74, 601-622.

Mills, S. J., Hager, S. L., Leverett, P., Williams, P.A. and Raudsepp M. The structure of H3O

+-exchanged pharmacosiderite. Mineralogical Magazine, 74, 487-492.

Lepore G. O. and Welch M. D. The crystal structure of parkinsonite, nominally Pb7MoO9Cl2: a naturally occurring Aurivillius phase. Mineralogical Magazine, 74, 269-275.

Mellini, M., Cressey, G. F., Wicks, J. and Cressey B. A. The crystal structure of Mg end-member lizardite-1T forming polyhedral spheres from the Lizard, Cornwall. Mineralogical Magazine, 74, 277-284.

18 BMS Newsletter 86

Mills S.J. The early publication of new mineral names: new procedures for the release of new mineral names and publication. Mineralogical Magazine, 74, 179-182.

Sir Arthur Russell

I am working on a project to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary (in 2014) of the death of Sir Arthur Russell, arguably one of Britain’s greatest mineralogical talents. More details will be available in due course, but in the first instance I am interested in obtaining good scanned copies of any of Sir Arthur’s hand-written labels, now in private collections, and ultimately possibly obtaining photographs of the specimens too. If you have any “Russell labels” in your collection, please get in touch with me. Thanks in anticipation. Roy Starkey.

DUE DILIGENCE

David Green

The recent discovery of a new mineral from Tsumeb in Namibia is a remarkable example of the maxim ‘never throw anything away, you don’t know when it might be useful.’ It also shows the value of looking very carefully at even the least promising looking things. In the middle of the last decade, Franz Neuhold, an Austrian micromounter, acquired a small vial containing grains, crystals and fragments of minerals from the famous Tsumeb mine in Namibia in an exchange of micromount minerals. The precise origin of the material and the exact locality within the Tsumeb mine was unknown, they may even have been fragments from a specimen gathered by someone who didn’t quite understand what a micromount was supposed to be. There was a single blue grain in the vial and because it looked a bit unusual it was submitted for analysis by energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry on a scanning electron microscope. The chemical analysis showed that zinc and arsenic were present, but the grain didn’t look quite like any known zinc arsenate. A collaborative study subsequently identified a new mineral species, Zn3(AsO4)2·4H2O, the arsenate analogue of the hopeite, which has been named arsenohopeite. It seems quite likely that more material will be found now that arsenohopeite has been characterised, but currently the holotype specimen, which is an ~1 × 1 × 1 mm grain is all that there is! Type material has been deposited in the collection of the Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Arsenohopeite is one of a number of new zinc arsenate minerals that have been described recently from Tsumeb. Tsumeb is the type locality for six zinc arsenates: reinerite, leiteite, warikahnite, koritnigite, ianbruceite and davidlloydite, with a further species under study. Some of these rare and inconspicuous species might be present at UK localities where zinc and arsenic primary minerals are oxidised.

Reference: Neuhold, F., Kolitsch, U., Bernhardt, H.-J. and Lengauer, C.L. (2012) Arsenohopeite, a new zinc arsenate mineral from the Tsumeb mine, Namibia. Mineralogical Magazine, 76, 603–612.

BMS Newsletter 86 19

AN INTERNATIONAL RESCUE

Roy Starkey

On 14th February, Christine, the wife of BMS Member Tim Neall received a call from the Parcel Force Depot in Coventry, alerting her to the fact that they were “holding” a parcel for Tim, posted by a friend in Italy, which had triggered their radioactivity detectors, and was therefore “quarantined”. Parcelforce advised that they would hold the item for 14 days, pending collection buy someone with written authorisation from Tim. Simple eh? Well, not quite so simple if you work in the remotest parts of Colombia!

Christine duly e-mailed Tim, who in turn contacted David Green on 16th February “Do you know a mineral collector or A.N. other who lives in Coventry and could

collect this parcel for me and look after it until I can collect it? I'll need to send them

a letter of authorization so hopefully they have e-mail.”

David forwarded the message to myself and Neil Hubbard “Are either of you near enough to help Tim out (see below), or do you know someone who might be?”

Under normal circumstances I would have said “yes”, but we were departing for Scotland the following morning. I called John at Parcelforce to establish how much “wiggle room” we had on timescale, and to find out precisely what form of authorisation / I.D. would be required for collection. John was extremely helpful and we spoke a couple of times on the phone, and exchanged e-mails.

I got in touch with BMS member Rusty Waughman in Kenilworth, and asked him if he might be able to take on the job. “Yes, no problem”, but Rusty has not got e-mail! A plan was beginning to emerge …. I went back to John and established that if Tim e-mailed John to confirm that Rusty would be collecting the package, and Rusty could prove who he was, that would do.

Rusty successfully picked up the package (many thanks to John) on 21st February and kindly agreed to look after it until I could get over to Kenilworth and collect it. On 22nd March I was able to e-mail Tim to say that I had retrieved the parcel from Rusty, and would pass it on to David at the next opportunity.

David picked it up on Saturday 24th March, and I then e-mailed Tim to leave it for him to arrange a hand-over when he was back in the UK. Tim later e-mailed David to advise that he was back in the UK until 10th April, and would call in to pick up the package, and David was able to confirm final “delivery” on 11th April - a good “team effort” all round!

The moral of this tale is that, if you are posting a radioactive mineral sample, put it in a small box, inside a much larger box, so that it will not cause problems en-route!

(NB Frank Ince points out that the double packaging may not stop activation of the

radioactivity detectors and that it probably depends on the emission.)

20 BMS Newsletter 86

THE LAST WORD FROM YOUR EDITOR

Thank you to everyone who has contributed material.

Please send all contributions for the next Newsletter - preferably in electronic format by e-mail, to bms@dannatt.org.uk (WORD, RTF, WORKS, OpenOffice.org, Publisher or plain text) with photos attached as separate jpeg files, or by post to Mike Dannatt, The Laurels, Garden Court, South Chard, CHARD, Somerset, TA20 2QX

The next BMS Newsletter is due to be published in October 2012. All contributions gratefully received - so please get writing! Deadline for contributions to go in the next newsletter is 1st October 2012.

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In the last issue, I suggested that we might consider the possibility of sending many of these newsletters to members by e-mail. I went on to say:

“The AGM would present an opportunity to discuss whether there should be a

discount for members opting to take electronic copies. If members want to

express their views sooner, please send an e-mail to me at:

bms@dannatt.org.uk

“I will collate them and make them available in time for the AGM and, perhaps,

put together a summary in the June issue.”

This prompted a flood of responses (meaning just one member e-mailed me) and 100% of those replying said “I would be happy to receive electronic copies – I can print if I want a hard copy.” (Two overseas members had already expressed a preference for printed copies and indicated that they would be willing to pay extra.

Clearly this requires more discussion at the AGM so, if you have strong views, please be prepared to make them known at the meeting in Leicester.

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It may have been noticed that the macro world has crept into our micro world in this issue. Forgive me if I stick to the same theme in this final note. It cannot have escaped the notice of many members that Crystal Classics has found a new home. Some members will have attended the open day after the opening. In my case, ever since I realised that they were just down the road in East Coker, I promised myself I would seek them out and have a look.

Although it took a little searching, I eventually found them (look for the obelisk with CC on it) and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. My wife, Janet, and I were made most welcome although I must admit to being mildly alarmed on being offered a ‘largish’ tray into which to place my selected purchases!

If you want to visit, it is best to do so by appointment. Any BMS member doing visiting is welcome to drop in at my home for a ‘cuppa’ although there is also an excellent coffee shop close to the sign of the ‘CC’.