CompuServe Messages

Hi, Doug- Chris, I hope you are reading this! > I'm following this discussion with great interest; however, the chemistry is way over my head, so I'm not contributing. Kitchen sink geology/chemistry for the moment is stritly verboten, but I shall be in touch again when I get the results on the specimens I sent to the Romero Museum for analysis. I got hold of yet more silver sulfides – sulfosalts – arsenates this weekend, including habits that are new to me. They are from the same, greatly altered shoot, but from about 1,350 feet down. This is lower than all previous mining work in the shoot and there are no similar specimens in the local School of Mines collection for comparison. One interesting aspect of the crystals is that they are nearly all highly etched and, in fact seem to be spongey-looking pseudomorphs of hexagonal plates – ?Polybasite. In most cases, the hexagonal plate shape has almost deteriorated to the shape of fish scales. However, there are occasional acanthite crystals among these pseudos on the matrix, which is massive silver sulfide or whatever under a thin layer of chalcopyrite. The zone is extremely acid, to the extent that tram rails and air pipes are corroded very quickly. If anyone cares to send me technical questions on this deposit, I shall do my best to get technical answers from the mine geologists or the government mining advisory council, which has an office in the area. I shall certainly take samples to Tucson in February 95, if anyone cares to take a look or a sniff. Chris