FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[John S. White]

Nice photos Chris and very nice specimens, some great classics. Seeing these minerals from France makes me wonder if any minerals were recovered from the 15 km tunnel that was dug in Switzerland and France for the Hadron collider. I would be surprised if the tunnel did not encounter some vugs, seams or pockets containing crystals.

[chris]

Hi John,

Glad you enjoyed. Unfortunately I'm not as good as ploum to take pictures. For the CERN who knows what they found ? Maybe something, maybe nothing ?

I going to tell you a story. Depending on which side you are, it is true or false. Some years ago, a dam was built up to the mountains at the border between Savoie and Isère (near the Glandon Pass). When they were tunneling the water tunnel between the dam and the power plant, they, according to cristalliers, hit a huge quartz vug (several meters wide).

Learning that the project supervisor (EDF, the French national eletricity company) asked the vug to be sealed to avoid having collectors sneaking around. When I told that story to a friend of mine who works for EDF he told me it was a fable... Here too, who knows, maybe there is still a huge quartz vug just beside that very scenic road ?

Christophe

[chris]

To complete this report and just for the pleasure, some pictures of blue fluorite from Le Burg, Tarn, France taken on Ms & M. Cabrol's display during the show.

[chris]

[Denis]

Hi everybody,

I'm Denis from France. I live near Grenoble.
My hoby is to collect alpin minerals in this area.
It's my first message in this forum. Sorry, My english isn't very good.

I was here in this Grenoble's mineral show saturday.
Thanks Chris for your good report with greats pictures about it !
In this show there was many displays with good locals minerals.

Denis.

[chris]

Salut Denis,

I'm glad you liked the pictures I took during the show. I hope you found something interesting to bring home.

Christophe