Calcite, Aragonite, Hyalite, Caliche
One of the few pieces of Helvetia that I took home from last year's collecting trip. I absolutely love the multiple generations of calcite that this mine produces. The combination of minerals form a wonderful fluorescent combination.
Calcite - red, orange, white
Aragonite - botryoidal white coated with caliche
Hyalite - Green
Locale: Helvetia, AZ
Weight: 1lb 4.7oz | 586g
Dimensions: 5.1 x 2.1 x 3.0 in | 129 x 52 x 77 mm
Hyalite
I had been wanting a Zacatecas hyalite ever since I first saw it at Jim's house. He had a wonderful specimen that had quite a large amount of daylight fluorescence. While I still haven't found my perfect specimen containing nothing but daylight fluorescing hyalite, this specimen did catch my interest. It has some unusual columnar hyalite crystals that are daylight fluorescing. It's been well documented that the cause of the fluorescence is a large amount of uranyl ions (though not that large. We're still talking parts per million) and it's fairly radioactive. Nothing too crazy. It only hit a max of 2400 CPM with a background of 140-150 as you'll see in the video following.
Locale: Zacatecas, Mexico
Weight: 5.2oz | 148g
Dimensions: 3.2 x 2.7 x 1.4 in | 80 x 69 x 35 mm
Scheelite and Hyalite
Collected by myself in December 2016. This is a wonderfully bright specimen of fluorescent white scheelite and green hyalite. This was somewhat of an exploratory find as I went outside the bounds of where collectors normally find their 3-5 color mineral specimens. Along the road to the mine there are various discard piles of waste rock from the mining process. Interestingly this material is dumped for the more pure scheelite that can be discerned by a fluorescent blue coloring. As there becomes more molybdenum in the scheelite it turns this whitish color eventually becoming yellow by replacing the tungsten and turning into powellite.
Locale: Princess Pat Mine, Adelanto, CA
Weight: 198g
Dimensions: 96 x 46 x 65 mm
SoCal FMS Meeting July 2016
On display during this meeting were some of Jim's best Chinese fluorescents. I have to say that I have nothing in my collection anywhere near as nice as some of the material he had. The reason for this? Our special guest was a dealer from China named Tracy Ling. She and her husband buy and sell minerals from China and if the specimens Jim has is any indication, it's very good material. I'm quite jealous and want to add a Chinese scheelite to my collection someday!
