Zeolites
5 messages in this thread
Joseph,
I am a collector of zeolite micros and would be interested in anything you
might have from Hawaii. What might you be interested in as trading material?
Frank L.
Frank,
I realize that you addressed your message to Jos. Murakami, but I thought I'd
jump in. I haven't been around as much in this forum, but I am a mineral
collector, whose principal interests are zeolites, radioactives, fluorescents.
I grew up in North New Jersey, atop the trap rock flows that make up the
Watchung Mtns., where I learned to appreciate zeolites.
My interest in minerals got lost in the basement of my mind until my
children were old enough to go out collecting. Mineral collecting is now an
organizing principle of my free time–indeed, my family and I vacation in
Bancroft, Ontario each summer.
I have collected zeolites at Sugar Grove, West Virginia; Table Mountain,
Golden, Colorado; Agoura Hills, Ca; Goble, Or; Gettysburg, PA; and Paterson,
NJ, all within the last year or so. I have a B&L zoom binocular scope, which I
use frequently. I probably have extra micros from most of the above
localities, including some neat wire pyrites from Sugar Grove, if you're
interested.
Let me know what your specific collecting interests are, and if anything
above strikes your fancy.
Cheers.
Nathan
Nathan
A little help please. Are you aware of any of the natrilite localities that
produce large crystals (such as the Bound Brook xtls that were quite course,
several inches long and 1/4+ across) that have produced them in nice
clusters/radial groups? All I've heard of the large ones have been singles.
Thanks
Lanny
Lanny,
The large individual natrolite xtals you describe, several inches long and
1/4+ inch across, are in the range of the largest I've ever seen from the NJ
traps. I've seen nice specimens at the AMNH, Smithsonian, and the Paterson
museum. The only specimens of that sort I've seen in the field were broken and
not very abundant at the Upper New Street Quarry. Most of the natrolite in
West Paterson fills voids in the pillow lava, and occasionally grows into an
empty space as a spray of crystals. Rarely are these crystals over 1mm across.
I have also collected natrolite from the hornfels at the Teeter Quarry, only
a short distance from the site of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, PA. The
crystals here are even finer than the New Street quarry's.
Sorry, I wish I knew a current source of large natrolite crystals.
Nathan
Nathan
My inquiry was strictly to learn if there was something available that I was
not familiar with. I have never seen coarse natrolite available. I bought one
of the Bound Brook singles (more than a decade ago?), and that is all I've seen
for large, coarse natrolite. The Russian material can be large (up to 1 m long)
but generally all the coars material is singles. These crystals in Montana (and
I don't recall what I told you) are potentially spectacular. All I've seen so
far is material weathered out lying on the surface. Hopefully we can get the
locality in production. It has the potential for producing spectacular
clusters. The largest I picked up in a radial cluster had terminated crystals a
hair over 6 inches long and 3/8 inch across. From my own collecting in
Washington and Oregon, natrolite is mostly less than a couple mm across,
dominantly needle-like and hair-like.
Lanny