FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Paul S]

Living in the Netherlands means that I have to get abroad if I want to find some nice mineral specimen. The Netherlands are rather boring in a geological sense, because we live mostly on clay and sand and only in the south-east and east there are some rocky areas. We also have large salt-fields in the north, but they are deep underground and is pumped up as a solution, so no nice minerals.

I myself have some Dutch pyrite, found in Winterswijk (sadly I have no nice photo yet). And I was wondering, how many specimen do you have that came from The Netherlands?

[str4hler]

Paul,

If you want to find more minerals in the Netherlands, join the https://www.strahlen.org forum.
FMF is of course great, with MTI Minas together one of the best sources for Spanish (and Portugese) localities ; but the Strahlen forum has more info on Dutch localities (etc).
There is more in Holland than Winterswijk Coelestin+Strontianite ;)
Siegenite+Millerite from the Hendrik. Or Pyrrhotin-xx on Quarz-xx from underground near Maastricht. Or Salmiak-xx etc from the Willem-Sophia. Or Gibbsit, Halloysit and Allophan from Curfs. And alpine style Quarz-xx near Epen. Etc. Not everything is online....

Cheers, de mazzel! Frank

[Jordi Fabre]

[str4hler]

The Ratum quarry near Winterswijk is not a protected place ;) It is an active quarry and can be visited without problem. Hundreds of people visit there every month. See https://www.strahlen.org/vp/nl/winterswijk/ for more info.
Have fun!
Cheers! Frank

[jacquestouret]

Of course, Enschede is a bit far away from Leiden, but next time that you go to this beautiful city pay a visit to the Museum NNM Naturalis (to my taste one of the best of its kind in Europa). Then you will see that they should have in their shop a book written in 2007 (Mineralen van Nederland, first authors Timo Nijland and Hanco Zwaan), which describe not less than 64 different mineral species, all found on the Dutch territory in few (if I remember well 6) localities. Some of these minerals are really spectacular, notably a "fulgurite" believed to be among the largest ever found (several meters). Interesting also were the large struvite crystals found in 1999 during archeological excavations in the Amsterdam harbour, believed to be issued from cattle (or human?) manure (R.D. Schuiling). Nederland has not only cheese of tulips, it has also few minerals, even if, I agree, they are not easy to find.
JT

[Paul S]

Thank you all for the information, the book tip from Jacques Touret is very helpfull and I don't need to go to Leiden to buy it, I saw it online. Naturalis is indeed a lovely museum and their collection is really nice, I have been there a few times.

I'm also familliar with the Strahlen forum, a topic gave me the information to buy a new microscope! It's a very good Dutch forum, so I will be joining it later on, just gotta find the time ;-)

I guess that the Dutch members have some or many minerals from The Netherlands, but how about the non-Dutch members? Do you have any Dutch minerals in your collection?