Tuesday, September 9, 2008

50 Minerals one must see....a geologic meme (and me too!)


Jumping on the bandwagon, here are the 50 minerals from Chuck's list that I have seen (See Lounge of the Lab Lemming and others here, here and here). Like Dave, I would have added more of my own, but I am at work after all. On the other hand, California is a dream site for finding strange and exotic minerals, and I am adding three to my list: Serpentine (yes, chrysotile, but I like the greasy form), because it is the California State Rock (legislature was supposed to call it serpentinite, but didn't know any better); gold, because it is our state mineral for obvious reasons, and seeing it in the wild is always a memorable experience; and benitoite, because it is our state gemstone, and it is found in gem quality specimens pretty much at a single mine in in San Benito County. It is also one of the first minerals discovered that crystallizes in the ditrigonal dipyramidal class, making for some beautiful triangular crystals. It is my picture of the day...


As Chuck says:


Use bold to indicate minerals you’ve seen in the wild. Italics is for those seen in laboratories, museums, stores, or other non field locations. Ex pet nerds may use underlining to indicate those that they’ve grown with their own two hands. And I won’t bother with stuff you intend on seeing- if you didn’t want to see all these minerals yourself, you’d be spending your precious lunch hour on a physics or biomedical blog.

Andalucite

Apatite

Barite

Beryl

Biotite

Chromite

Chrysotile

Cordierite

Corundum

Diamond

Dolomite

Florencite

Galena

Garnet

Graphite

Gypsum

Halite

Hematite

Hornblende

Illite

Illmenite

Kaolinite

Kyanite

Lepidolite

Limonite

Magnetite

Molybdenite

Monazite

Nepheline

Olivine

Omphacite

Opal

Perovskite

Plagioclase

Pyrite

Quartz

Rutile

Sanidine

Sillimanite

Silver (native)

Sphalerite

Staurolite

Sulphur (native)

Talc

Tourmaline

Tremolite

Turquoise

Vermiculite

Willemite

Zeolite

Zircon

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