FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Pete Richards]

[Peter]

All CORRECT original detailed information is important now and in the future as we are hopefully only temporary custodians.

I heard a European mineralogical publisher frown upon the detail a friend had given exact details as to mine, vein, depth, date found and by whom.

He stated: Who knows when and where it ha been found.
Now, this old gentleman happened to have very good contacts with miners in his country for 6 decades and had exact details for almost every specimen. It not only can help to lineage which zones of an orebody, which veins and which periods produced what but from a geological-geochemical-mineralogical viewpoint can provide invaluable material for analyses to understand if the deposit formed under several stages/events,with current knowledge we may not even know how valuable the samples may prove to be in the future when our knowledge and understanding has improved.

Now for a collector who DO NOT care to take care of such data think about this:
The mineral specie/name can always be analyzed hopefully hundreds or thousands years from now unless crazy politicians manage to start WW3 as has been going on for some time.

What can not be determined with 100% certainty in the future is the exact details of the find. Now of course what is communicated on a label, into a database etc is limited to the information that person in that moment decides to put.

[Fiebre Verde]

My 2 cents on this.

When I started getting interested in emeralds, I thought Colombian emeralds were all coming from one locality called Muzo.
It didn’t take me long to find out there was more than just one locality producing emeralds in Colombia. I was so dumb. So it wasn’t simply Muzo, but also Coscuez, Peñas Blancas, La Pita, Chivor and Gachalá – well sort of...
I was happy with that handy list for a while, helped by the fact that there was a general consensus among the various stakeholders in Colombia and elsewhere on these locality names. Virtually all the specimens sold locally and elsewhere were labelled with one of these names!
As my collection was starting to build up, I realized that the reality was a bit more complex than what I thought.
Actually each of these “main localities” consists in many tunnels and shafts - up to several hundred - scattered sometimes over a vast area (>50 Km2 for the Chivor district).
But the good news is that each major tunnel has usually a name associated to it.
Needless to say that I was very excited the day I heard about the existence of an extra level of detail in the locality names as this would bring an added value to my collection, at least for the coming specimens.

I didn’t know that this discovery would actually mark the beginning of serious trouble in my quest for accuracy in the locality names.
Unless you hammer the specimen directly from the rock, there will always be a doubt on the exact location where it was extracted from.
Several reasons for that
1) Illegal mining is a long time tradition in Colombia and most of the specimens are actually mined by the ‘guaqueros’ (illegal miners). They won’t admit they have extracted the specimen themselves so forget about asking them for the location…
2) A strong code of silence among the mining community at large. The exact location where a specimen is found by a legal miner is considered as sensitive information. It requires time, patience and good connections before making the miner talk
3) Most of the local dealers don’t know/don’t care about the exact locality. The bad thing is that whenever asked about this, they feel they have to provide an answer
4) Lot of tunnels – even the main ones sometimes – are interconnected. Even the people operating the mine don’t necessarily know where they are (or pretend so when they are actually operating in the neighboring mine!)
5) Emerald material sold next to the mines is not necessarily locally mined. When they are not fake, they might just come from a different area. I have seen specimens from Muzo sold in the Chivor area, and vice versa.
6) Last but not least – emerald trade is all about faceted stones. Until very recently, there was never a need to disclose the exact geographical origin of the raw material. The situation might change in the future as some labs are now trying to include the origin component as part of their standards and protocols for emerald analysis.
I realize that some of these reasons are cultural and certainly not applicable everywhere.

Now, and since I do care, how do I label my specimens?
There is a growing number of dealers in the emerald business in Bogota who are also interested in the exact source of the merchandise they sell.
This is partly driven by a demand for more transparency and accountability from the gemstone market which requires not only a full disclosure of the treatments (still a dream…) but also the exact geographical origin.
For those who are looking for minerals, the ideal situation is when specimens of the same find hit the Bogota market. By cross-checking the information from different local sources, you get a good clue on the name of the tunnel where the pocket was found.

Gérard

[bob kerr]

Thanks for the replies. Seems most of you care more about getting a deeper level of specimen detail than I do but that a specimen missing this level of detail does not really impact your purchase decision one way or the other – so in reality we are not all that different in opinion – if the detail is there then all the better – as long as it’s accurate – and how do you know?

A few random thoughts:
- Although I personally do not value this higher level of detail, I do want to know either the mine or the source. Seems this is a minimum requirement – even the label “Minas Gerais, Brazil” would be of some value – but certainly not much. However a specimen with no – or clearly wrong – locality info would not scare me away from a purchase at all.
- Accuracy – do you believe the details of a label?? The vast majority of specimens come from ore mining operations – operations that do not care about specimens and actually discourage specimen recovery with fines or firings (think Milpillas). Sometimes (many times) specimens are collected by miners doing midnight raids (or even dealers like Prosper Williams as the N’Chwaning article points out). Did they take the time to note the exact details of their plunder? Or maybe they actually provided false info to conceal their efforts? Caveat Emptor!
- Concerning current or future scientific value of our specimens, I have a more pragmatic view. In most cases, our specimens are probably one of the many, many thousands – or even tens of thousands – or millions, removed from a locality. This along with the label uncertainty mentioned above makes it hard for me to see how my specimens would ever be of scientific importance – good science needs good accuracy.
- Within even the same pocket or zone there can be – and usually is – large variations in crystal form, color, luster and association. Would “location in pocket” then also be important? Is this EVER available?
- If detailed data within a locality were of importance in making a purchase, I would venture that minerals from China (especially calcites and fluorites) and India would not sell well at all. In many of these cases even the locality is in question – forget about other details. Or conversely, if a high level of label detail were important, every specimen from these localities would have all kinds of detail – but refer back to the “accuracy” point above.
- What I see in the market today has gone MUCH further towards aesthetics and less about scientific or geological value. How else can you explain the huge demand/price importance placed on “Wilbur free” specimens? I don’t think science cares that much about a small ding or two or three in a specimen – and – I don’t think the buyer of aesthetics – or an “investor” – cares about much label detail.

Again, thanks for the input.
bob

[lluis]

Hi, Bob

Maybe I am a "black swan" (well, I am chemist, and you know, we are treated not exactly as nice persons.... So... But I can assure you that we do not bit, not wear black robes, not wear a pointed hut and we do not make human sacrifices.... at least the ones I know....), but I care a lot for info...and I care a lot to have specimens free of Wilber's...

Yes, to me, a small, minute imperfection, man done, detracts my interest in specimen.....

Maybe odd...

With best wishes

Lluís

[Fiebre Verde]

[alfredo]

As a geologist, I'm interested in the characteristics of the deposit a mineral came from, it's geological environment. Names of mines are often a political or administrative convention and don't necessarily provide more accuracy. If you get specimens labelled "Chuquicamata mine" and "Chocaya-Animas mining district", which label provides more precise locality info? In this case, the mining district label does! Chuquicamata is a gigantic pit, a few kilometers long. Chocaya-Animas is a string of 6 mines, all working the same set of veins, and covering a much smaller total area than Chuquicamata.

But collectors seem to have an intense drive to know a mine name, whether or not that actually gives them any more detailed information. Hence the majority of dealers label all phosphophyllite specimens from Potosi city as being from the "Unificada mine", because it keeps the customers happy, even though that name is merely an administrative convenience and does not indicate which part of the mountain a phosphophyllite specimen came from!

[Pierre Joubert]

I like Alfredo's reasoning. Our collecting field in the Western Cape is relatively poor in crystallized species, but beautiful quartz is in abundance. I collect from numerous places across a few hundred km and will never specify exactly where the specimens come from, and for obvious reasons. The region is good enough for me; any more detail is welcome. I usually give the closest town as the area of origin. I also agree with Bob Kerr and Gerard.