FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Sam314159]

Here are a few apatite crystals that came from a pocket I dug out on Sept/5/2013. The pocket was underneath a calcite vein that cuts across the property. We came across a much larger crystal but it was embedded in solid calcite. We attempted to remove it with a small chisel and hammer with little success. Does anyone have any advice as to removing crystals from calcite?

[Mark Ost]

Of course for those hard to remove crystals......................................

[Pete Richards]

Calcite is hard to work with because when you beat on it in a confined situation (more calcite) it tends to mash into a tougher mass than it started out as. One possibility is to work very slowly with small tools, trying to exploit the cleavage of the calcite grains to get out fairly large chunks. About the only other two would seem to be 1) to wait 1000 years and come back and see how it's doing, or 2) to use a diamond chain saw or equivalent to cut out the apatite crystal together with a surrounding layer of calcite, then chip the latter away.

[Sam314159]

Yup, we tend to use very small chisels when working the calcite. Its very difficult. The chisel sends vibration through the calcite, which usually ends up cracking the desired crystal. Most of the decent crystals we find are in pockets underneath the calcite veins - where the calcite has eroded, freeing the crystals.

[Pete Richards]

But certainly you are not collecting these apatites in the suburbs of Toronto! Would you give a locality, plus or minus 50 miles or kilometers, or at least generically, for the sake of accurate regional mineralogy?

[Sam314159]

My apologies. These crystals were gathered in the Bear Lake Diggings Prospect near Bancroft, Ontario. The site is about a three hour drive from Toronto. The site produces interesting terminations on the apatite crystals - a melted candle sort of termination. The termination can be seen in the following image.