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My reading
  
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Tom Mazanec




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PostPosted: Mar 26, 2016 11:04    Post subject: My reading  

I intend to read about minerals until the main ones are as familiar to me as the planets of the solar system.
Personal library (thank you Amazon used books!):
Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks and Minerals
Henry Holt Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils
Usbourne Spotter's Guide Rocks and Minerals
A Photographic Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils
Peterson First Guide Rocks and Minerals (I read the Field guide from the library and plan to get it)
National Audubon Society Pocket Guide Familiar Rocks and Minerals of North America
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals
Handbook of Rocks Minerals & Gemstones (Schumann)
Minerals (Guastoni & Appiani)
AmericanNature Guide Rocks and Minerals (o'Donoghue)
Golden Field Guide Minerals of the World
Kingfisher Field Guide to the Rocks and Minerals of the World
A Field Guide in Color to Minerals, Rocks and Precious Stones
Minerals (Hochleitner)
Minerals (Robinson)
The Complete Illustrated Guide to Minerals, Rocks & Fossils of the World

In addition I have read a lot of introductory books from the library, as well as two textbooks I am going through (Nesse Introduction to Minerology and Wenk, Bulakh Minerals). I intend to reread these until I the minerals are as familiar as the fifty states. I also have a small mineral collection I got through Amazon. No locations, so it's not good as a collection, but I can practice studying minerals.
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Robert Seitz




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PostPosted: Mar 26, 2016 13:03    Post subject: Re: My reading  

I appreciate some understanding of the associations of minerals. Textbooks such as Guilbert and Park, The Geology of Ore Deposits, and other more recent are interesting in conjunction with the purely mineral focused. That's my bias anyhow.
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Pete Richards
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PostPosted: Mar 26, 2016 17:04    Post subject: Re: My reading  

If the Robinson you mention as author is George Robinson, his book is excellent and unusual for treating minerals in the context of their environments of formation. This is an invaluable perspective when it tells you that two minerals "identified" on a specimen could not possibly have formed in the same environment, and therefore their occurrence on the same specimen is highly suspect. But this perspective may be somewhat advanced for where you are at present - read it anyway!

I certainly do not know all or even most of the books you list. But I would suggest that you look for some older introductory books from when amateur mineralogists really tried to learn something of the science. One possibility is Mineralogy (or another edition: Mineralogy for Amateurs) by John Sinkankas. Another is Minerals and How to Know Them by Dana/Hurlbut (mine is 3rd edition, c. 1949). Fred Pough also wrote a popular introduction to Mineralogy - I don't have it, but perhaps someone else can give the citation. These books fall in between college mineralogy texts which are for now probably too detailed for you, and many "Guidebooks" which present pictures of minerals, database-like entries about properties and environments, but don't really do much to teach you how to make informed observations and conclusions about a rock or mineral you have in hand.

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Matt_Zukowski
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PostPosted: Mar 26, 2016 17:26    Post subject: Re: My reading  

IMHO, the best general book on mineralogy is John Sinkankas' Mineralogy for Amateurs. It is out of print but widely available as a used book. Lithographie has been promising a new edition for a long time and I will buy this book as soon as I can.

I agree with Robert Seitz that gaining knowledge about how mineral deposits come to be greatly enriches one's appreciation for mineral specimens. To his book, I'd add the following:
Robb, Introduction to ore forming processes
Evans, Ore Geology and Industrial Minerals
Groat, Geology of Gem Deposits
London, Pegmatites

A great book explaining how xtals form is Sunagawa, Crystals: Growth, morphology, and perfection.

A fantastic book that organizes fluorite by habit is Van Der Meersche, Crystal Forms of Fluorite. This book is great for showing how idealized isometric forms manifest in nature.

A book I have found useful to help me understand how to care for my specimens is Howie, The Care and Conservation of Geological Material.

There are some great english-language mineral magazines that might interest you including the Mineralogical Record, Rocks and Minerals, Mineral Observer, etc.

There tons of books that give both information and eye candy. Some that come to mind are: American Mineral Treasures, the Desmond Sacco Collection, and Namibia (Bezing, Bode, and Jahn).

There are also tons of books that give excellent information on a particular locality. One that comes to mind is: Gebhard, Tsumeb.

A good place to look for books is Lithographie.
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John S. White
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PostPosted: Mar 27, 2016 05:22    Post subject: Re: My reading  

Hi Tom:

I admire your approach to learning about minerals but I have to say that the information in quite a large number of the books you listed is more or less redundant. There are several other excellent ones that are not on your list that would greatly expand your understanding of minerals, especially one that has been recommended by others, the Sinkankas book Mineralogy for Amateurs. You also have an excellent tool at your disposal, this Forum. You can view thousands of images of minerals here and discussions about many of them.

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Tom Mazanec




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PostPosted: Mar 27, 2016 13:43    Post subject: Re: My reading  

John S. White wrote:
Hi Tom:

I admire your approach to learning about minerals but I have to say that the information in quite a large number of the books you listed is more or less redundant. There are several other excellent ones that are not on your list that would greatly expand your understanding of minerals, especially one that has been recommended by others, the Sinkankas book Mineralogy for Amateurs. You also have an excellent tool at your disposal, this Forum. You can view thousands of images of minerals here and discussions about many of them.


I don't know about redundancy. For example, one has nothing on ulexite, and another just has the basic facts without mentioning its optical property. If I stuck with those, I would have never learned about this natural optic fiber.
But I will make a point of looking for these other books recommended.
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Jamison Brizendine




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PostPosted: Apr 15, 2016 08:44    Post subject: Re: My reading  

Matt, Pete and Robert all made great recommendations, but I would like to add my two cents.

Some of the books that Matt mentioned are excellent but are now hard to find. David London’s Pegmatites (2008), Georg Gebhard’s Tsumeb (1999), and Bezing et al. (2014) Namibia book come to mind. Another excellent book to hunt down is William Simmons (2003) Pegmatology: Pegmatite Mineralogy, Petrology and Petrogenesis. Its available on Rubellite Press.

My professors also recommended that I pick up a copy of Barnes’ Geochemistry of Hydrothermal Ore Deposits (1997, also extremely hard to get the 3rd edition, the 2nd edition [1979] is much cheaper), and Edwards and Atkinson’s Ore Deposit Geology and its influence on Mineral Exploration (1986). Matt mentioned Lawrence Robb’s Introduction to Ore Forming Processes (2005) and I agree that this is an excellent resource (It was also a required textbook to own). I own both a physical and a PDF copy which I have printed and annotated for my personal use.

I also own the Van Der Meersche book too. That book was worth every penny I spent on it. Everytime I open that book my jaw drops at the amount of effort that went into it.

The book that my professor strongly recommended that I read was Waldemar Lindgren’s Mineral Deposits (1919, 1928 and 1933) and told me to read it cover to cover. This book is necessary for a complete literature review on the subject and Lindgren’s approach really established the theory on ore genesis. Minsocam.org wrote a tribute to him when he passed away. This book can still be found in universities, libraries and yes, I have found copies for sale too.

Interestingly, the “field guide” you didn’t mention, that was a “strongly recommended textbook” for our mineralogy course was Minerals of the World by Ole Johnson (2002). It has colored pictures and outlines many of the major minerals that are commonly found at mineral shows. My copy is now extremely dog-eared from the amount of annotations I wrote in it for that course.

The required textbook for our class was Dexter Perkins’ Mineralogy (2001). The book itself has decent information, but after buying the 3rd edition (2010), I was surprised at the amount of errors I found. The second edition is cheap, but I think the Sinkankas book is better. I ended up buying a copy of Mineralogy: A Geologist’s Point of View (Hibbard 2002) as I thought it was a better textbook than Perkins.

These recommendations though, only scratch the surface so to speak.
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Tom Mazanec




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PostPosted: Apr 16, 2016 18:46    Post subject: Re: My reading  

Many of these books cost too much, even for a Xmas present.
However, I downloaded a few ~100 year old books cheap on my Kindle...amazing how well they hold up.
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Tom Mazanec




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PostPosted: Jun 11, 2016 13:43    Post subject: The Ulexite test  

As I mentioned, different books have different coverages of minerals. There are a hundred or so that are mentioned in all, but thousands that are mentioned only in a few. And even when two books cover the same mineral, different ones cover different aspects of the mineral. So I decided to classify the modern field guides by their coverage of ulexite.
FULL means ulexite is listed and its fiber optic quality is mentioned.
PART means ulexite is in the book but not its optical characteristic.
NONE means ulexite is not mentioned.

Smithsonian Handbooks Rocks and Minerals Pellant
PART
Rocks and Minerals a Photographic Field Guide Pellant
FULL
Minerals Robinson
NONE
The Complete Illustrated Guide to Minerals Rocks and Fossils of the World Farndon & Parker
FULL
Minerals Hochleitner
NONE
Minerals, Rocks and Precious Stones Bauer
NONE
American Nature Guides Rocks and Minerals O'Donoghue
FULL
Kingfisher Field Guide to the Rocks and Minerals of the World Cook & Kirk
NONE
Minerals of the World Sanderstrom
PART
National Audubon Society Pocket Guide Familiar Rocks and Minerals of North America Chesterman
NONE
Usborne Spotters Guide Rocks & Minerals Woolley
NONE
Peterson First Guides Rocks and Minerals Pough
NONE
A Photographic Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils Roberts
NONE
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals Chesterman
PART
Minerals a Firefly Guide Guastoni & Appiani
NONE
Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks & Minerals Mottana, Crespi & Liborio
FULL
The Henry Holt Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils Hamilton, Woolley & Bishop
PART
Handbook of Rocks, Minerals & Gemstones Schumann
FULL
Princeton Field Guides Minerals of the World Johnsen
FULL

Addendum
National Geographic Pocket Guide Rocks and Minerals of North America Garlick
NONE
Golden Field Guides from St. Martin's Press Rocks and Minerals Sorrell
PART
Beginner's Guide to Minerals & Rocks Grice
FULL
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