FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Pierre Joubert]

Hi Mike. Nice specimens; especially the small smoky quartz. We have very similar problems with the insects; fortunately the midges here do not bite. They are just hugely annoying when it's their season.

[Mike Wood]

Hi Pierre, yes, it's a shame the big smoky quartzes aren't as transparent as the smaller ones! I suppose that if they were, there would be none left to find, because everyone would have been looking for them for the last two centuries or so..
Do you have problems with snakes in South Africa on your collecting trips ? We have adders (a type of viper) in the UK though they aren't very common. I didn't see any on Arran for the first sixteen years of going there, then I saw four within one year ! Managed to get a photo of two of them (see below) but missed my chance of photographing the black snake (I think it was a melanistic form of adder) that I saw and was amazed by. I took it as a good omen...(!)

Mike ;-)

[Pierre Joubert]

Hi Mike. Snakes are becoming increasingly hard to see in our area, although we killed 2 Black-necked spitting cobras in our neighbour's yard last year. We have a very similar adder to the first one in our area, called a Night adder. Thanks for all the lovely pictures of specimens and scenery.

[Mike Wood]

The biggest and best, and the smallest and rarest.

[Mike Wood]

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[Mike Wood]

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[Mike Wood]

Hello again; I think it's about time I showed some photo's of the things I discovered on the Isle of Skye when I was there in March/April earlier this year, when the weather was very cold but very sunny. Hope you like them.

Cheers, Mike.

[Greg Lilly]

Hi Mike,
that is a great stilbite & chabazite specimen, love the texture and contrast,
great find,
Greg

[Mike Wood]

Thanks Greg,

yes the colour combination and contour make a nice specimen, unusual in Skye zeolites.

Sorry for the poor photo; I've since realised I have two better ones..

Mike

[Mike Wood]

Some heulandite from Moonen Bay

[Mike Wood]

Here are two more large specimens of stilbite and pink chabazite

[Michael Shaw]

Mike, I really like these stilbite/chabazite combos.
Michael

[Mike Wood]

Thank you Michael !

I had another trip to Skye in September this year, again in the company of Dave. Apophyllite was found at Moonen Bay to rival that found on my first visit there, in April 1994 !
Here are a few photo's of the new specimens...

[James Catmur]

Mike

It was great to see you at Bakewell. Keep adding photos please, as we all love to see your new finds and the wonders of Scotland - do feel free to add some photos to the Scotland page if you have time

https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=3142

James

[Mike Wood]

Thanks James, it was a real pleasure to meet you also! I shall continue with the photo's...

Now here's something you don't see very often.. well, not around these parts anyway. However, I did have a good reason for wearing a full 4mm wetsuit and hood and mask and snorkel, even if it was in the middle of the forest ! Good job there was nobody around to see the spectacle - they would have thought I was nuts - and they wouldn't have been far wrong.

More to follow...

Mike

[Mike Wood]

Ok here's the story...

About a year ago I was walking along a stream in the woods on the Isle of Skye, when I happened to see a shiny thing on a gravel bank at the edge of the water. I was only a couple of metres away from it and nearly didn't bother to pick it up because it looked just like a bit of crumpled aluminium foil. Something made me pick it up, I had a closer look and tested the weight of it in my hand; it seemed so insubstantial I nearly threw it back in the water. But it wasn't aluminium foil, it seemed kind of hard, so I put it in my pocket.
Later that day, near the edge of the woods I found a gold watch ! Well gold plated actually, and it was still working but the calendar date was about two weeks in the past. It was the type that doesn't have a self-adjusting calendar date so I worked out it must have been lost about two and a half years before I found it. The watch stopped working two weeks after I found it when the battery died - very spooky.
Later that day, back in my tent, I looked at the shiny thing I'd found in the stream with a loupe and to my amazement I could see crystals - typically like silver. Unable to wait until I got home where I could examine the thing with a microscope, I took a steel pin and gouged the back of it, quite easily, and was left in no doubt. I had found a silver nugget !
So there we have a remarkable co-incidence of silver and gold being found on the same day, in the same neck of the woods, by the same person. And that is why I went back there with a wetsuit, goggles and snorkel. And the reason I'm telling you this is because despite lying flat out in the stream for three hours I found nothing whatsoever !!
There We Are Then.

Mike ;-)

[Mike Wood]

Back to hunting for smoky quartz, but in a different part of Scotland: The Cairngorm Mountains or Cairngorms. The highest mountain plateau in Scotland with a tundra-like appearance and weather to match the high latitudes, formed by the largest granite pluton in Scotland. Famed for the large 'Cairngorm' or 'Morion' crystals that have been found over the last two hundred years, most of which was turned into fashionable jewellery; but a few huge crystals survive to this day. The largest weighed over 50lb (~25kg), also large topaz and beryl crystals were discovered, but most of this happened in the 19th century and they are hard to find nowadays.

Since 1994 I have been on several expeditions to the Cairngorms, usually involving 3 or 4 days bivouac, or small tent if the weather is less than perfect. Though a lot is to be said for a one-day trip with a lighter rucksack. As the ground is pretty bare and stony in most places there is a lot of ground to look at - many crystals have been found just lying on the ground. In the summer there is a lot of daylight and much ground can be covered if you are very fit. Though of course the weather can turn suddenly and a lot of people have been caught out over the years and more than a few have died, even in summer when blizzards of snow can and do occur. And it's not a good place to get lost in the fog or get injured, especially on your own. Good navigational skills with map and compass are essential.

In my experience there isn't much to find, not where I've been looking anyway, but I'll post a few minerals I did find, as well as scenic landscape photo's to give an impression of what it's like.

[Pierre Joubert]

Fantastic Mike!!! That is life! Most of the excitement is the hope and expectancy to find something; add to that stunning nature. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

[vic rzonca]

Looks like a mighty lumpy pallet you set yourself down on. I see no rope or biners. Solo accent of one of the classics, Mike? Great post.

[Mike Wood]

Thanks Pierre and Vic for your nice comments. I'm afraid to say I didn't solo any famous rock climbs though there are quite a few! The big cliff in the distance (2 miles/5km away) is Shelter Stone Crag and when you get up close it's scary. I've only done one roped climb around here, many years ago, on Hell's Lum Crag (far left of the first photo).

On this visit my main objective was to look for phenakite crystals on Ben Macdui, the UK's second highest mountain (4,300ft or 1,309m), where they have been recorded. In fact I found one crystal there in 2006 near some old diggings - it was a lucky find, in fact I thought it was just a nice albite crystal at the time, and it sat in a drawer for a few years until one day I had a closer look at it, tested the hardness (7.5 - 8), then showed it to a few knowledgeable folk. Haven't had it tested by xrd but it's habit and hardness are a giveaway - it looks rather like a misshapen 'nail-head' calcite crystal.

However, on this occasion there was snow lying over the area where the phenakite was found (as I concluded after wandering around for two hours), so the next day I left most of my stuff hidden in the rocks and went for an exploratory lightweight walk over the UK's third highest mountain - Braeriach (1296m) - which I hadn't ascended before.
The weather and scenery was incredible.