FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Gabriel Plattes]

G'day fellows, new member here. :)
I am a rare book librarian in care of a library relating solely to the earth sciences, & also have the charge of mineral collections. My principal is a rather private man, so I have joined under a pseudonym. [Do note, in private communication (say via message, here) I do not obscure my true name.]
I look forward to reading, & joining your fascinating discourses!

[James Catmur]

Welcome, where is the library?

[Peter Farquhar]

I am so pleased that Gabriel Plattes has joined us on Friends of Minerals Forum. Over the past few years, he has generously provided invaluable help with my research on mineral specimens, collectors, and historical events. I'm sure he will help others on FMF, too.

For a recent article I wrote about Robert Ferguson of Raith (1769-1840), Gabriel Plattes was able to provide materials from Ferguson's journals, shipping manifests, lists of his minerals on display, collection inventory and valuation reports, and so on.

For another project, Gabriel compared the handwriting samples of labels from the late 1700s to identify the original collection for a rutile specimen, which we then confirmed with a page from the collection catalog.

Given his keen skills and these remarkable resources, Gabriel Plattes will be a superb colleague on FMF. Welcome, mate!

[Gabriel Plattes]

Ta, kind sir - my pleasure entirely!
Catmur, it be in Straya.

[Craig Hagstrom]

New member here, still have my first prize, a fist-size Lake Superior agate picked up in my driveway about 70 years ago. I like rocks, have a few, not a serious collector.

Recently got interested in Libyan Desert Glass, bought a few pieces, and was intrigued by what appear to be crystals. I wrote up a description of what I think this means, and put it on Archive-dot-org titled Libyan Desert Glass Structure under my name. 13M, 58 pp PDF.

This forum seemed like a good place to look for feedback, guidance, help, corrections. I may be out of my depth, but I'm having a good time. :)

[Firmo Espinar]

Welcome to FMF Mr Hagstrom.

Ready to share with us your fist-size Lake Superior agate picked up in your driveway about 70 years ago?

It’s always nice to be able to show some of our first pieces.

[dancarlson]

New Member here:

I joined this forum to see if I could contact Joaquim Callén about getting a back issue of Mineral Up (2018 #1). The reason for this is because i acquired a carrollite TN specimen online from Dan Weinrich a while ago, who had acquired it from Jordi Fabre. Later, I somehow found myself on Jordi's web site and came across my carrolite. Jordi had a great photo of it but also mentioned it had been figured in the aforementioned issue of Mineral Up. This had not been mentioned in Weinrich's description - so I was delighted to find this info archived on Jordi's site. I'm now extra delighted to discover that Jordi is the overall Coordinator of this forum.

For the record, I'm a member of Crystal Gazers and Bay Area Mineralogists, and just exiting my role as treasurer from the latter.

Incidentally, I just did a Google search on carrollite. On the Google results page is a Wikipedia summary featuring three photos. The photo with the black-to-white gradient background is my carrollite - though it's Weinrich's photo.

[Craig Hagstrom]