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Volume 5 Issue 8

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Fluorescent Book Report 

             A useful picture book: Collecting Fluorescent Minerals, by Stuart Schneider was published in 2004 by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 4880 Lower Valley Road, Atglen, PA 19310.  It costs $29.95 with $3.95 shipping.

             This book was called to my attention by fellow micromounter, Gene Bearss, who spotted it at the Franklin Show.  This will be a valuable reference for everyone having an ultra-violet light.  The brilliant pictures show the specimens in daylight, then in shortwave and/or long wave

I have used my Mineralight as a testing tool for 40+ years.  Over that time I have purchased all the books and new editions about fluorescence by Manuel Robbins and Warren Gleason.  I was most grateful for the help those books gave me in Korea to id. scheelite, powellite, calcite, etc. since there were no books on Korean minerals in English, (only Japanese).

Micromounters or mineral collectors collecting at Mont Saint-Hilaire will find the 15 pictures of fluorescing minerals from there helpful, although it is important to recognize that often the same minerals have different glow colors from different locations in the quarry and some don’t fluoresce at all.  “Reverse fluorescence” (my name), for hackmanite, a variety of sodalite that appears white or grey when cracked open in the sunshine, quickly turns vivid pink and only fades when taken into the dark. The UV light will restore this pink color for a while.  From other locations at Mont Saint-Hilaire the hackmanite acts, in the usual fashion, by fading in the sun.  This present book mentions this phenomenon for hackmanite specimens from Afghanistan.

There are 70 dazzling pages of Franklin/Sterling, New Jersey fluorescent minerals!  Surely this book is the answer to a prayer for collectors from that amazing world-class location.

A whole section on Greenland suggests that that country will be giving Frankin some competition in the future.  Who knows what “global warming’ will reveal!  Also there are many pictures of fluorescent minerals for Australia, Pakistan, Italy, China, and on and on.

Northern New England is represented pictorially by eucryptite from Parker Mt. in Stafford, NH and “manganapatite” (an obsolete variety term for manganoan fluorapatite) from both the Bennett and Tamminen Mines in Maine.  Also many minerals from sites in Connecticut, and New York are included.

  There is also a useful section critiquing various UV lights of the past and present and gives the recent prices.

Although I am enthusiastic about this book, I wish someone had proofread the copy before it went to print.  As an indifferent speller myself, I am very dependent on “spell-check” and my long-suffering spouse.  For instance desert is written dessert in several places.  Buckfield, in Maine is spelled Brickfield.  The curious statement that “strontianite is a type of aragonite” is puzzling; (Strontianite is a genuine mineral in the aragonite group). I caught other mistakes as I read along, but these are minor annoyances.

I hope that this book will inspire more people to use fluorescence as a useful identification tool.

Patricia Berry Barker

 

 


 

Mineral Clubs - Meeting Dates

Saco Valley Gem and Mineral Club 3rd Thursday of each month at the Albany, NH Town Hall – 7:00 PM

Keene: 1st Saturday of each month at Keene State College, Bldg. 18, Keene, NH – 7:00 PM

Nashua: Last Wednesday of each month at the Nashua public Library, Court St., Nashua, NH in the downstairs Theater Room – 7:00 PM

North Shore (MA): 3rd Friday of each month, St. Paul Episcopal Church, Washington St., Peabody, MA – 7:30 PM

Boston Mineral Club: 1st Tuesday of each month, Harvard University Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA – 7:30 PM

Southeastern NH Mineral Club: 2nd Wednesday of each month, St John’s Methodist Church, 28 Cataract Ave., Dover, NH – 7:00 PM