Welcome to the Boston Mineral Club!

Previous Meetings

April 2008

Rare-Earth Minerals - Dr Anthony Mariano

At our April Meeting the Boston Mineral Club welcomes back Dr. Anthony Mariano. Tony has considerable experience as a mineral exploration geologist, and has worked throughout the world with ore and gem deposits, and with rare-earth element (REE) mineral deposits, the topic of this evening’s presentation.

Tony writes: “The current demand for rare-earth elements has fueled a strong response on exploration for REE-bearing minerals on a world level. This talk will focus on minerals and geologic environments that comprise the major source of REE and yttrium. Examples will also be shown of some of the less common REE and yttrium minerals.”

A rare-earth mineral is one which contains one or more of the 15 rare-earth elements (the lanthanides of the periodic table) and/or yttrium. All rare-earth mineral species have a name with a chemical-symbol suffix, called a Levinson suffix, which indicates the predominant rare-earth element present. For example, monazite-(Ce) is a mineral with cerium as the predominant -- but not necessarily the only -- rare-earth element present.

There are hundreds of important high-tech and environmental applications for the rare-earth elements, making REE minerals economically quite valuable. These minerals can also be fascinating to collect. Though many are inconspicuous or unattractive, some are actually quite beautiful and even gemmy - like the color-change bastnäsite crystals coming out of Pakistan in recent years.

The following rare earth and yttrium minerals have been reported from New England:

Carbonates: ancylite-(Ce); bastnäsite-(Ce); kamphaugite-(Y); kainosite-(Y); lanthanite-(Ce); parisite-(Ce); synchysite-(Ce), synchysite-(Y)

Phosphates: florencite-(Ce); monazite-(Ce); rhabdophane-(La), rhabdophane-(Nd); xenotime-(Y)

Oxides: cerianite-(Ce); davidite-(La); euxenite-(Y); fergusonite-(Y); polycrase-(Y);
samarskite-(Y); yttrocolumbite-(Y);

Halides: fluocerite-(Ce)

Silicates: allanite-(Ce); britholite-(Ce); cerite-(Ce); chevkinite-(Ce); gadolinite-(Ce), gadolinite-(Y);
hingganite-(Y)

To complement the presentation, club members are encouraged to bring in rare-earth mineral specimens from their collections.

March 2008 Meeting

Tuesday March 4, 2008
Topic: New Hampshire Mineral Species Collecting - Tom Mortimer

Our March speaker, Tom Mortimer, is a longtime collector of New Hampshire minerals and is a
past president of both the Nashua Mineral Society and Micromounters of New England. Tom's
presentation will feature a slideshow of specimens from his extensive collection of New Hampshire
species. He has been an avid field collector for many years and has collected at both well known
and obscure localities throughout the state. A major focus of his ongoing collecting efforts is to
collect as many different mineral species as possible from within the boundaries of the state.

To complement the presentation, club members are encouraged to bring in some of their New
Hampshire specimens, especially those of rare or unusual minerals. This promises to be an
enjoyable and informative evening, one that should definitely spark our enthusiasm for the
upcoming field collecting season.

December 2007 Meeting

BMC Meeting: Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Doors open at 7:00, Meeting begins at 8:00

"Auction Preview and Favorite Mineral Collecting Spots "
BMC Members

In December we have not invited an outside speaker, but instead will look to the membership to make brief presentations on the following topics:

First Topic - "Here is the terrific specimen I am donating or consigning to the Auction",
telling its story, or yours. Jim Cahoon has set a good example for us all with a large amethyst he found this year at Wrentham that he is generously donating.

The Club’s annual auction and party will be held a week early this year, January 12, 2008 at the same location, the Village Club in Needham. It is time to think about donations and consignments to the auction. Each year an amazing quantity of interesting and diverse material surfaces at the auction, but some of our most generous donors have just about finished clearing out their basements.

This is a general call for donations in January, and a specific call to come to the meeting and talk about your own. Give or consign something good for the benefit of the Club.

Second Topic - "My favorite collecting site (that I am willing to divulge)", with some specimens for show and tell from the site, with a discussion of whether it would be possible to go there as a club if we don’t go already.

Many club members collect on their own or with their friends in addition to club trips. Would you tell the BMC about where you have gone and liked, recently or in the past, with samples of what you found?

This should be a very interesting meeting. There is a lot of specialized knowledge in the group that we don’t often get to share. Please come to present and to listen.

Third Topic – Anything on your mind that you’d like to share with the group.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 8:00 we will hold a brief business meeting and plan to start the presentations by 8:15.

Ocober 2007

BMC Meeting: Tuesday, October 2, 2007, 7:30 PM

"The Långban Fame - Mining, Mineralogy and Collecting History. "
Jörgen Langhof, Curator of Minerals
Swedish Museum of Natural History
Dr. Erik Jonsson, State Geologist, Geological Survey of Sweden

Our October speakers are visitors from Stockholm, Sweden who are visiting Carl Francis and the museum at Harvard. Carl suggested and they have kindly accepted our invitation to speak to the BMC about the world-famous Langban deposits of central Sweden.

Jörgen Langhof is Curator of Minerals at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and is co-editor of Långban. The Mines, their Minerals, Geology and Explorers, 1999. Dr. Erik Jonsson is State Geologist with the Geological Survey of Sweden. His 2004 doctoral thesis dealt with “Fissure-hosted mineral formation and metallogenesis in the Långban Fe-Mn-(Ba-As-Pb-Sb) deposit, Bergslagen, Sweden.”

From an abstract of the 1999 book:

The Långban dolomite-hosted iron–manganese deposit, situated in central Sweden, is one of the most mineral-rich sites in the world, with about 270 different species. It is the type locality of nearly 70 of these, and for more than 20 species, Långban is the only known locality.

From “Swedish Minerals and Mineral Shows 1995” Mineralogical Record, May 1996 by Cooper, M P:

Langban is one of the world's most remarkable mineral deposits. Quirks of geochemical history had deposited an unusual assemblage of elements at Langban -- iron, manganese, arsenic, antimony, beryllium, lead, etc.-and mixed and matched them with complete disregard for "normal" mineralogy. For a few decades around the turn of the century Langban produced unknown after unknown. But despite the remarkable mineralogy, Langban specimens are relatively unknown in the international collector community,

To complement the presentation club members are encouraged to bring in mineral specimens from their collections from Langban.. For any updated meeting information, check the BMC web site at bostonmineralclub.org.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 8:00 we will hold a brief business meeting and plan to start the presentation by 8:15.

June 2007

At the June meeting the Boston Mineral Club welcomes back Mike Haritos, past President and long time friend of the BMC. Mike will report on his appraisal assignment in India with Superb Minerals (superbminerals.com). This will be our last meeting until September.

Many of us have seen Mike in action, leading the BMC January Auction with wit, good humor and an obvious understanding of the minerals he is selling. Mike is a scientist with a good eye for beauty and value in a specimen. He is also a successful field collector; we got to see a stunning suite of Achushnet, MA minerals he displayed at the November competition a couple of years back.

By day, Mike teaches Earth Science at Boston Latin. I have always thought that if I had had a teacher like Mike I would never have veered off the true path into Biology. For some years now, to keep in practice for the BMC Auctions, Mike has run Argentum Auctioneers and Appraisers, Inc. (argentumauctioneers.com).

About a year ago, Mike went off to India on a mass appraisal assignment for a large Indian mineral dealer. He reports:

I was hired by Superb Minerals to appraise their mineral inventory. My talk will begin with a few shots of India, some information on the Deccan traps, the methodology used in appraising many thousands of minerals, photos of some of the famous trap rock quarries, and ends with a pictorial visit to the Gargoti mineral museum in Nasik, India.

I am running a trip to the quarries of Mumbai and Nasik etc in Feb. 2008 (14th to the 23rd) Superb Minerals will host the quarry trips and provide transportation and legit entrances to the various working trap rock quarries. There are trip openings for a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 15 collectors.

India zeolites are some of the showiest minerals around, and quite interesting because of their similarities to and differences from New England and Nova Scotia trap rock minerals. Club members are encouraged to bring in Indian specimens from their collections.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 8:00 we will hold a brief business meeting, followed by a preview of the Summer field trips and our featured speaker

May 2007

At the May meeting the Boston Mineral Club welcomes back Dr. James Skehan, Director Emeritus of the Weston Observatory at Boston College. Dr. Skehan earned his PhD in geology from Harvard and holds degrees in geology and theology. He has written on topics geological and spiritual, and the relationship between science and religion.

At the Northeastern Section meeting of the USGS in March of this year, Robert Marvinney and Walter Anderson of the Maine Geological Survey presented a paper entitled, “Father Skehan’s Contributions to State Geological Surveys.” From their abstract,

A northern Maine native, Father James Skehan has had a half-century of influence on the development of state geological surveys. His dissertation work mapping in northern Vermont became a foundation for future geological investigations. His establishment of the Weston Geophysical Observatory at Boston College brought focus to northeastern seismicity and the need for a truly national seismic network. Broad and far-reaching interpretations of tectonic events in Massachusetts and neighboring states have focused renewed investigations in those areas. Through his popular contributions to the “Roadside Geology” series, he has taken geological survey information to the masses. From his unique spiritual and geological perspective, Father Skehan's essays on evolution and creationism helped frame this important national debate.

Jim Skehan’s talk will cover the Geology of Southern New England, and knowing our particular interests, will contain some emphasis on collectable minerals. His visit to the BMC four years ago left us with a much clearer understanding of the complex geology of Massachusetts. Since then, he has been hard at work on the Roadside Geology of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and his talk this time will include as well our neighbors to the south.

To complement the presentation club members are encouraged to bring in mineral specimens from southern New England from their collections.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 7:45 we will hold a brief business meeting and plan to start the presentation by 8:00.

April 2007

A lot of us are casual collectors when we venture off to other environs on vacation. For some of us, mineral collecting is the whole point of the trip. Our April speaker BMC member Paul Young has had considerable success as a field collector in New England, but sometimes ventures farther afield. Paul is a long time BMC member who works for the Army Corps as a geologist. Paul notes,

"Many people have a favorite place where they like to collect, be it a micro or macro specimen locality. Mine is New Mexico. Why? It started around 1989-1990 when I went there on a collecting trip with former club member Bob Krupa. I was hooked. Since then I've been back there more times than I can recall. So, if you want a respite from the cold New England weather I invite you to come and join me and my friends as I take you on a tour of 5 localities that we visited in July 2006."

In the summer of 2006 Paul and BMC members Jim Cahoon, Larry Bull and former member Bill Hall went on a collecting trip that included Bingham, the Gila Fluorite District, Granite Gap and other localities. They did pretty well, and Paul will present the highlights.

To complement the presentation club members are encouraged to bring in mineral specimens from New Mexico from their collections.

March 2007

After an informative, scenic and bug-free armchair journey to Colombia led by Dr. Tony Mariano, our March meeting will bring us home to focus on mineral collections.

How would you go about building a museum-worthy mineral collection? At the March meeting the Boston Mineral Club welcomes back Dr. Carl Francis, Curator of the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, past President and long time friend of the BMC. Carl will discuss the why, how and for whom of museum collections and our own collections.

Carl earned his A.B. in geology from Amherst College and his graduate degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. In addition to his duties as curator of the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, he has been involved with the Harvard Extension School's graduate program in Museum Studies program since its inception. He was the recipient of the Carnegie Mineralogical Award in 1993 and served as Chairman of the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on Museums from 1994 to 2002.

Carl has developed and taught a Harvard Extension course in Collections and Curation that investigates the formation of collections, their acquisition by museums, and their use for educational and research purposes. The last time he spoke to the BMC (March 2006 “Russian Gold”) he promised to come back and share some of his thoughts and expertise in collections with us. He will talk a little about current developments at the museum, and the BMC’s relationship with the museum.

Since this talk will not be place or species specific he will not be bringing specimens to Haller Hall, and club members can leave their collections at home.

February 2007

Our December meeting featured Woodrow (Woody) Thompson of the Maine Geological Survey. Woody’s presentation was a comprehensive view of what is going on in Maine, which is quite a lot. Few people have such an all-encompassing view of mining and mineral collecting in Maine and we were treated to a very interesting evening. If you missed it, check out the Geological Survey website which has some fantastic links : http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/minerals/index.htm

At our February Meeting the Boston Mineral Club welcomes back Dr. Anthony Mariano of Carlisle. Tony's work as a mineral exploration geologist has brought him to forty-five countries. As our speaker Tuesday evening, February 6 he will focus on one of these, Columbia.

He will talk about his most interesting consulting missions in Columbia, including:

1) Ilmenite-apatite mineralization in anorthosite bodies in the foot hill jungles of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Martha.
2) Heavy mineral evaluation of dredges from gold mining from the Rio Nechi in Antioquia near the village of El Bagre.
3) Emerald exploration in Muzo, Cosquez, Chivor and Gachala.
4) Copper and gold exploration in the famous Darien where Balboa first viewed the Pacific Ocean in the early 1500’s.

A brief mention will also be given to sapphire exploration in Cauca and platinum from the river sediments in the Choco.

In his past visits to the BMC, Tony has discussed his work in rare earth pegmatites in northern Canada, his gem exploration with the UN in Colombia, Pakistan and Kashmir, and Chalcopyrite as the world's major copper ore. His work includes the use of cathodoluminescence as a guide in mineral identification and exploration.

To complement the presentation club members are encouraged to bring in Columbian specimens from their collections. We will make the club display cases available to display your specimens.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 8:00 we will hold a brief business meeting and plan to start the presentation by 8:15.

January 2007 - BMC Auction

Tuesday, 5 December 2006
Details: Our December 5 speaker will be Woody Thompson of the Maine Geological Survey. It has been a few years since Woody has addressed the Club, and he will cover recent pegmatite mining activity in Maine. The Geological Society has an informative web site http://www.state.me.us/doc/nrimc/mgs/mgs.htm.

Tuesday, 14 November 2006
Details: Annual Specimen Competition and Business Meeting
Specimen Competition Categories
November will be our annual specimen competition and club elections. Watch for details on the competition, themes and categories, and for a review of club offices and duties. If you feel the call to service, please contact jim.catterton@verizon.net or one of the other officers. More on this soon.

Tuesday, 3 October 2006
James Tovey, owner and operator of the Wise Mine, the Beauregard and the Tripp/Clark mines in New Hampshire will be our speaker for the October 3 meeting. For a preview of his talk, check out his web site at http://www.toveco.com/2006-Conn/ .

Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Details: Annual Summer Collecting Show and Tell Session

BMC Meeting: Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Doors open at 7:00, Meeting begins at 8:00

"Silver Mining and Minerals - Guanajuato, Mexico" Dr. Elizabeth Ferry

BMC members come by their interest in minerals from various perspectives and disciplines, often through the sciences or an appreciation for beautiful things. Our June speaker has an anthropological view of mining and mineral collecting, and will share with us a glimpse into the world of Mexican silver miners from Guanajuato. Elizabeth Ferry is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and the Acting Chair of Latin American and Latino Studies at Brandeis University. She is also our Newsletter Editor.

Elizabeth will tell stories and show images from her field work as a cultural anthropologist with miners in the last silver mining cooperative in Mexico, the Santa Fe Cooperative of Guanajuato. Guanajuato was founded as a mining camp in the middle of the 16th century. With the bonanza of the Valenciana mine in 1768, Guanajuato became the world's largest producer of silver in the 18th century. The major ore minerals include silver, acanthite and the sulfosalts polybasite, pearceite and pyrargyrite. It is also the type locality for aguilarite, Ag4SeS. Calcite and amethyst are its signature gangue minerals. Less common are adularia ("valencianite"), datolite, fluorite, hydroxyapo-phyllite, milarite and stilbite.

In 1939, the U.S. owners of many of Guanajuato's most productive mines left the country, turning over their properties to the workers. The Sante Fe cooperative, the longest running mining cooperative in Mexico by at least two decades, finally sold out in 2005 to a Canadian company. It was able to survive so long in part because it allowed its members to extract mineral specimens for sale.

It turned out that one of the places Guanajuato minerals turned up was in the Harvard Mineral-ogical Museum. With the help of Carl Francis, Elizabeth has traced correspondence between mining engineers from the late 19th century in Guanajuato to donors to Harvard’s collection.

Elizabeth will speak on the interaction between ore mining and mineral specimen extraction in Guanajuato, including the economics of the silver and minerals markets, the effect of
technological change, and the uses of minerals within Guanajuato.

In case you missed Elizabeth's article "Minerals of Guanajuato, Mexico; Mineralogy, Economics and Religion" in the May 2006 BMC Newsletter, it is presented in the Members Section of the club's web site. This is a very interesting article, directly related to her upcoming talk.

Members are encouraged to bring silver and related specimens from their collections, especially Mexican specimens.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 8:00 we will hold a brief business meeting and plan to start the presentation by 8:15.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Kentucky Fluorite Adventures
By Nathan Martin, Ed Norton and Steve Towne

The program for our May meeting will be given by Nate Martin, Ed Norton and Steve Towne. These three recently participated in a weekend collecting trip to Kentucky (and Illinois) to collect fluorite on the freshly-turned dumps of several old zinc and fluorite mines that closed shortly after World War II. The trip was organized by Alan Goldstein of Louisville, KY and was limited to 35 collectors. In two jam-packed days the group collected at four different mines in Crittenton and Livingston Counties in Kentucky. They also had the opportunity to visit two mineral museums with world-class collections of fluorite from the Illinois/Kentucky fluorite district. These museums are the Clement Mineral Museum in Marion, KY and the American Fluorite Museum in Rosiclare, IL.

This was Nate Martin’s second trip to the district and the presentation will be illustrated by his pictures from both trips. The talk will deal briefly with the history and geology of the Kentucky fluorite district and then provide an overview of the amazing collections at the two museums. This will be followed by a discussion of the collecting opportunities and adventures that occurred during the trip. Samples of the minerals collected during this trip will be on display and the presentation will conclude with a proposal to schedule a BMC fieldtrip to the district this fall. Pictures in the members Area

Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Speaker: Dr. Robert Zartman
Dating Meteorites - The Solar System's First Moments

For the past couple of years Dr. Robert Zartman, retired Geologist from the U. S. Geological Survey in Denver, has spent the late winter and spring months at Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. At Harvard he has participated in studies of black shales as indicators of the Earth’s past atmosphere, and is now analyzing the U-Pb isotope systematics in meteorites. Meteorites contain many clues to the origin of our Solar System, including insight into the stardust--made by previous generations of stars—contained in the condensing nebula. What happened during the brief (only a few tens of millions of years) time span between the initial gas cloud collapse and the formation of the sun and planets, is currently an exciting area of research. And in a surprising confluence of popular music and science, it turns out that Joni Mitchell was right--we are stardust.

We are pleased to welcome Bob as our April Speaker. An expert at determining the radioactive age of rocks here on Earth, and now expanding his interests into planetology, he will speak on the topic "Dating Meteorites - The Solar System's First Moments". The last time we left our planet was to hear Dr. Sarah Stewart's talk on impact craters on Mars.

Bob and his wife Ruth are active members of the Littleton (Colorado) Gem & Mineral Club, and joined the Boston Mineral Club when they came to Cambridge.

Bob earned his BA in Geology from Penn State, and did his graduate work at Cal Tech. His work here in Massachusetts in the 60’s and 70’s provided isotopic ages that helped clarify the Commonwealth's confusing geology, and is reflected in the state geological map and in Dr. Jim Skehan's Roadside Geology maps. He has published over 150 technical papers and books on rock dating and other isotope research. In the decade since his ‘retirement’, he has also held research appointments in South Africa and Germany.

Harvard’s meteorite collection has been moved to the main mineral hall in the Museum in an attractive, expanded display. Most of our members probably do not have meteorites in their collections, but if you do, bring them in.

In case you missed Jerry Carter's Taken for Granite Column, "Keeping Secrets - Zircons" in the January 2006 BMC Newsletter it is presented in the Members Section of the club's web site at bostonmineralclub.org. This is a very interesting article, quite directly related to Bob Zartman's work and a useful review for those of us who are not quite up to speed on isotopic dating.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 8:00 we will hold a brief business meeting and plan to start the presentation by 8:15.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Speaker: Dr. Carl Francis, Harvard Mineralogical Museum

At the March meeting the Boston Mineral Club welcomes back Dr. Carl Francis, curator of the Harvard Mineralogical Museum and long time friend of the BMC. Carl will discuss "The Natural History of Gold".

Thanks to the bequest of the Albert C. Burrage collection, the Harvard University mineral collection includes an extraordinarily comprehensive representation of gold specimens, including forty-two specimens from Russia. Burrage purchased the important gold collection formed by George de la Bouglise, a famous French mining engineer, at auction in 1911. Burrage died suddenly in 1931, so the Harvard suite dates from the Civil War to the Great Depression.

Carl has published on gold related topics, including: "Gold Crystals: A Primer", Rocks and Minerals January/February 2004; "An American Perspective on Russian Gold Specimens", Rocks and Minerals May/June 2004; "Harvard Gold", Mineralogical Record 1982, 13:355-57.

He will talk a little about current developments at the museum, and we will ask about ways in which the BMC can help him and the museum.

Carl will not be bringing specimens to Haller Hall, but he notes that the selection of gold specimens exhibited in the Museum in Case E1 has been changed and expanded. To complement the presentation club members are encouraged to bring in gold specimens from their collections. We will make the club display cases available to display your specimens.

The Harvard Mineral Museum should be open starting at 7:00 PM. At 8:00 we will hold a brief business meeting and plan to start the presentation by 8:15.

Last Meeting: Tuesday, Feb 07, 2006
Speaker: Dr. Anthony N. Mariano; Consultant Minerals Exploration Geologist

Topic: Chalcopyrite — The Major Source of Copper-Occurrence and Mineral Association

Desc: At our February Meeting the Boston Mineral Club welcomes back Dr. Anthony Mariano of Carlisle. Tony's work as a mineral exploration geologist has brought him to forty five countries. His forty years of experience is broad and deep and we are fortunate that he can join us as our speaker Tuesday evening, February 7.

He will talk about his copper exploration work in North and South America, Africa and New Guinea, and about Chalcopyrite in particular as the world's major copper ore.

Chalcopyrite, CuFeS2, has a copper content of about 25%, lower than other copper minerals including chalcocite, Cu2S, cuprite, Cu2O, covellite, CuS, diginite Cu9S5 or bornite, Cu5FeS4. But large deposits and widespread distribution of chalcopyrite make it the leading source of copper.

In his last two visits to the BMC, Tony discussed his work in rare earth pegmatites in northern Canada, and his gem exploration with the UN in Colombia, Pakistan and Kashmir. His work includes the use of cathodoluminescence as a guide in mineral identification and exploration, and we may get another invitation to his lab.

Dr. Anthony N. Mariano
speaks on
"Chalcopyrite- The Major Source of Copper-Occurrence and Mineral Association"
BMC Meeting: Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Photo created and produced by Dan Downey