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str4hler
Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 93
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Posted: Jun 09, 2008 09:14 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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That Discoball is a dream !
cheers!
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Jon Mommers
Joined: 07 Jun 2008
Posts: 68
Location: Melbourne. Victoria
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Posted: Jun 09, 2008 17:28 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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The tourmaline is truly amazing, my seven year old daughter thinks it looks like a giant lolly and I have just spent the last fifteen minutes explaining to her who Flash Gordon is. Looks like I will be searching through old videoshops to find an episode or two. Fantastic pieces. Congratulations
Jon
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 09, 2008 18:03 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Well thanks to both of you for your compliments, you are very kind.
I also have a seven year old Grandson who has no idea who Flash Gordon is either, but the tourmaline gives us a chance to pass that old bit of trivia on.
I take so much pleasure from the formation and even the bit buried in the lucite base has a knob of tourmaline that looks like the jet fuel as it hits the ground.
And tell your seven year old daughter that if she ever comes to the States I will give her a personal tour!
Best regards!
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_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Jon Mommers
Joined: 07 Jun 2008
Posts: 68
Location: Melbourne. Victoria
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Posted: Jun 10, 2008 00:56 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Hi Gail,
Passed your offer onto my daughter, she wanted to pack her bags straight away.
Told her as I had previously promised, when she is ten, we'll do the tourist thing in the US,she complained that wasn't fair. ....compromised, a cuddle and icypole although I suspect she relented more because I told her of the height requirements at Disneyland. Her sister was placated when I told her she wouldn't be left out and she could sit front row at Seaworld and get saturated by the Killerwhales.
Thanks for the offer, hopefully we will be able to take you up on it one day.
Please keep posting photo's of your collection, am getting a great deal of joy from them
Cheers
Jon
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 10, 2008 22:29 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Los Lamentos Wulfenite
Single crystal perched beautifully atop matrix like a butterscotch candy.
miniature, ex Helmut Bruckner specimen.
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Wulfenite Los Lamentos, Chihuahua, Mexico |
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Wulfenite Los Lamentos, Chihuahua, Mexico |
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Wulfenite Los Lamentos, Chihuahua, Mexico |
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_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 10, 2008 22:49 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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This is the finest Chrysoberyl sixling we own, we have two others that are quite nice but this one became available in Tucson 08 and we had to have it. Very gemmy and well formed.
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Chrysoberyl Sixling Itaguacu EspiritoSanto, Brazil |
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_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 10, 2008 22:59 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Gypsum is not something I tend to think about acquiring, but this one was just crystal clear and very beautiful in its mountainscape habit.
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Gypsum Arignac Quarry Ariege, France |
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Gypsum Arignac Quarry Ariege, France |
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_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Pete Modreski
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Jul 2007
Posts: 709
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 11:48 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Hi Gail,
Thanks again for sharing your specimens via photos. I'd been busy and was just now catching on on reading/viewing these posts; starting from the latest ones first, I had been curious and eager to go back and see what the "Flash Gordon tourmaline" looked like. That really is a neat specimen, and it does look like a futuristic green rocket ship. (Reminds me a bit of the Emerald City of Oz, too.) The apophyllite disco ball is great too, as is the Red Cloud wulfenite cluster that followed it.
Thanks again for letting all of us see these,
Pete
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 12:44 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Thank You Pete, I still need to put in sizes of the latest pieces. We are busy getting the house ready for our MAD meeting on Saturday. We have Jolyon Ralph attending as our guest speaker.
It is only late in the evening that I find time to resize and upload photos, but need to pull up my excel file with sizes and descriptions....something I find myself too tired when it comes time to do so.
I want people to see some of my perspective, and my husbands also....we both seem to have very similar taste. But what I am showing are some of my very favourites.
Got a LOT more, we now top 2900 in our collection.
But I will still keep it to my special and favourite photos.
Cheers. Gail
ps...photo of me enjoying my other passion, cycling on bicycles of all ages!
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Me and my "Ordinary" Victoria. 52 inch wheel also known as Penny Farthing. |
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Pete Modreski
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Jul 2007
Posts: 709
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 13:22 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Wow, the bike is something, Gail! Also your outfit. Every once in a while I see someone riding something like this... you can really do it, then, and not fall off??? Good for you!
Since you've sent this, along the same line I would like to post a picture we just took this past weekend, while poking around an old mica mine near Guffey, Park County, Colorado. I hopped into this slightly-past-its-prime small truck that had been used in the mining operations, to try to take it for a little spin. Was having a bit of a tough time getting it started; when we tried to check the oil, the first problem was trying to find the engine, so we never got very far in it, I must admit.
Cheers,
Pete
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 13:34 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Think of the petrol you will save?!
Doing your part for the environment eh?
ha ha!
Good shot Pete. We have a home up on Hoosier pass and that would look nice as a lawn ornament!
By the way, my outfit includes Bloomers and button up boots. I have done a 100K ( 62 Miles ) in 7 hours and ten minutes on that bike, that includes two stop/breaks.
Of course I wore a helmet and bike clothes from this era when doing so. And, I had shoes that clipped into the pedals when I did, which is pretty scary stuff.
Jim and I will go do about 30 miles for fun on these bikes, we have 6 in our collection. Our daughter rides also.
See below.
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Caitlin, Jim and Gail riding in festival in Galveston, Texas. Victorian. |
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_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Pete Modreski
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Jul 2007
Posts: 709
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 14:06 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Way cute, Gail!
Your bike trips reminded me (may I tell a little story?) about what I think was pretty much my VERY FIRST mineral (or geology) field trip, way, way, way WAY back a long time ago, when I was in high school, living in East Brunswick, New Jersey.
I did this on my bicycle, because this was before I was old enough to have a drivers license. I had been born in & grown up in the neighboring town of New Brunswick, and I knew there were some roadcuts in the red "Brunswick Shale" (called Triassic then, now I believe known to be earliest Jurassic age) along a street at the south edge of that town, that overlooked the Raritan River. So I set out on my bike to ride there & check them out; in my bike's basket I had a very small hammer (really kind of a tack puller) that I'd found in our garage, and I don't remember what else--must have had some kind of food or water--plastic water bottles didn't exist then, so I likely may have brought my Boy Scout aluminum canteen.
This was a fairly adventurous excursion for me back then--of course, no helmets or bike paths in those days. I just now had to check on mapquest.com to get an idea how far this would have been; looks like about 5 or 6 miles each way. Well, I did get to the roadcuts and poked around; I recall finding greenish veins in the red shale, where reducing fluids had turned red hematite to pale green iron silicates (a common feature in such rocks, and I do think I probably understand the chemistry then), and, as I'd later found more of there and at some other similar exposures once I had a car to be more mobile with, some little cavities in the red mudstone (possibly from solution of glauberite or other original evaporite minerals) that contained drusy micro crystals of calcite, and less commonly, tabular micro Baryte. I'm sure I still have a few of these specimens, which of course were "no great shakes"--somewhere. I subsequently wrote a short article for Rocks & Minerals magazine about this--round about 1967 or so, one of my first mineralogical "publications".
(Pardon me, all, for getting a bit off topic here.)
Pete
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 14:16 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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What an adventure!!! I think that is rather fun, the bicycle was the first real sense of freedom we had as children and I had a lovely three speed bike that was my joy.
You really did something special and to me that was a true mineral collecting trip.
I will delete these postings down the road, but want to leave them up for a bit so others can enjoy them before removing them.
I find your story delightful, no need to apologize for getting "off topic" that is the fun of it being Gail's message board!
_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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chris
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Jul 2007
Posts: 538
Location: Grenoble
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 14:22 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Hi Gail,
I saw through the pictures you posted that you had great minerals in your collection but your bicycle is definitely beating Indiana Jones ;-)
If I were you I would leave your posts (you can delete this one) where they are because your bicycle worth remaining beside your minerals because it is as impressive for me as your specimens. Enjoy it
Christophe
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 11, 2008 14:33 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Ha Ha Christophe! Okay, will leave the posts where they are.
I see you list Grenoble as your location. Jim and I stayed in Grenoble in July of 2003 for the Tour De France. We rode out of Grenoble to all sorts of fun places including the
Alpe d' Huez.
_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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chris
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Jul 2007
Posts: 538
Location: Grenoble
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Posted: Jun 12, 2008 14:49 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Hi Gail,
In fact I live in the outskirts of Grenoble, in a little village south of the city when you take the highway towards l'Alpe d'Huez.
Hope you enjoyed your stay in the area. Next time you are over here, I recommend you the mineral museum of Bourg d'Oisans. Of course it is not as impressive as the Smithsonian but it worth a visit as it displays minerals from Oisans.
As you stayed in the area, I've included a picture of interest for a mineral collector like you. At a time the spot produced nice axinite & epidote. It is "Les Aiguilles d'Argentière" above the Glandon Pass, Savoie (nothing in common with those above Chamonix).
Christophe
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Jordi Fabre
Overall coordinator of the Forum
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 4904
Location: Barcelona
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Posted: Jun 12, 2008 15:15 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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And smoky Quartz too!
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Quartz Gwindel from Argentière Glacier. Specimen size: 11 × 6.8 × 3.7 cm. Mined aproximately on 1985 |
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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Posted: Jun 12, 2008 15:49 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Bourg d'Oisans. I had lunch there and we rode through there on the way to the climb that made Lance Armstrong and many others famous. Jim and I were on a tandem bicycle and it was our honeymoon! We also stayed two days in Chamonix, went up to Mt. Blanc and that was brave of me considering my fear of heights!
I had the best crepe ever, with pistachio ice cream and chocolate sauce with whipped cream, yum!
Oh...this is all making me hungry. Great quartz Jordi...and Christophe??? Thanks for the photo!
_________________ Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Tracy
Joined: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 551
Location: Toronto
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Posted: Jun 12, 2008 18:47 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Great quartz indeed Jordi! It is one of my favorite recent acquisitions and displays very well in my quartz suite :-)
Thanks for choosing that photo as your example!
_________________ "Wisdom begins in wonder" - Socrates |
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chris
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Jul 2007
Posts: 538
Location: Grenoble
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Posted: Jun 13, 2008 10:30 Post subject: Re: Gail's collection |
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Hi Jordi,
In fact your smoky comes from Argentière, Mont Blanc, Haute-Savoie, not Aiguilles de l'Argentière, Belledonne, Savoie (as seen on the picture). From what I know no smoky was ever found in the area.
For smokey, you have to change of range and switch from Belledonne to the Grandes Rousses where some finds were reported some years ago.
Gail did you really climb the 21 turns on tandem ? I'm really impressed because the slope is quite steep. It seems that Texas' folks are quite good on a bicycle.
"Oh...this is all making me hungry. "
Enjoy your meal & your week-end
Christophe
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