Blogs
Blogs & Articles: A complete library of User' uploaded posts about their collecting, collections, finds, acquisitions and anything else mineralogical they want to share.
Please feel free to write your own and cross reference with items in our database.
21 Nov, 2016A quick glance at this piece and it looks like a good pink cobaltoan smithsonite specimen from Tsumeb, but when you check more closely the habit and the matrix is very different; this is because it has originated from Berg...
21 Nov, 2016EDS confirmed galloplumbogummite spheres (pictures 1-5; picture no. can be seen by mouse overlay on the pictures below) in germanite renierite ore, accompanied by otjisumeite needles (pictures 8-10), unknown bright phase (...
18 Nov, 2016Back in 1979 at a place called Tomahawk Creek near to Rubyvale in Central Queensland, Australia, a 2020 carat (404gr) yellow gem sapphire was discovered. The story alleges that a local boy, on his way home from school,...
16 Nov, 2016If you don't already know about it, here is a website for anyone who is interested in old mining history, especially related to the western states of the USA. The website contains a huge and comprehensive database of mining...
12 Nov, 2016As they say "you live and learn" and in the interest of mineralogy this is nearly a daily experience. The photograph above shows some little grain-like crystals of native sulphur set on scorodite from Hemerdon Bal in Devon,...
09 Nov, 2016For those of you who check out my personal timeline on Facebook you will already be aware that I keep this fed with a steady stream of mineral photographs and sometimes (not so) witty captions! I just do this for a bit of...
06 Nov, 2016Peshawar based Imran Bangash of Spin Ghar Minerals has just returned from an exciting trip to the mining locality at Marki Khel in Khogyani, Afghanistan. The locality is well reknowned for its wonderful specimens of...
05 Nov, 2016Apart from selling on e-rocks I am a passionate field collector. Everybody else doing so knows how difficult it can be to collect at a new locality. When the new e-rocks was introduced I was really happy to use the database...
03 Nov, 2016Recently I obtained a specimen from Tsumeb without a name. It underwent elemental analysis and turned out to be beudantite. This case shows that elemental analysis can be very useful. Even if the precision is limited, in the...
02 Nov, 2016The mines at Merelani in Tanzania are not only already famous for the gemstones tanzanite, tsavorite, scapolite etc. but also for the superbly well crystallised sulphide minerals namely pyrite, wurtzite and of course...
01 Nov, 2016Germanium (Ge) & gallium (Ga) are elements which are essential in our todays life. ----------------------------------------------------------------- In the semiconductor industry Ga is used for InGaAs diodes, which have...
31 Oct, 2016Today is Halloween, a fun time of dressing up, lighting lanterns and "trick or treating". Our own ghoul face agate lives all year round on a shelf with the family pictures above our stairs. We bought him back in 2000 when...
