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Jesse Fisher
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
Posts: 639
Location: San Francisco
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 Posted: Mar 24, 2010 14:57 Post subject: Re: When a mineral can be called a mineral. |
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| Oh, and did I mention skarns? To form these mineral assemblages a large mass of (usually biogenic) calcium carbonate is required. Why should braciopods and bryozoans get all the credit? |
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Paul S
Joined: 20 Mar 2010
Posts: 79
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| Posted: Mar 25, 2010 06:24 Post subject: Re: When a mineral can be called a mineral. |
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| Carles Millan wrote: | | Paul S. wrote: | | it can be very frustrating not knowing wether you should add a speciment to your collection or not. |
In case you ever fall in love with a fake, you're always free to display it in your showcases, no matter what the IMA standards say. Of course, you should disclose this condition to any collector that visits you or whenever you intend to sell or trade such specimen. Otherwise you'd be a cheater. |
Thanks for the encouraging words, you are absolutely right about giving the right information. I see a lot of fake minerals being sold on eBay. They normally tell you they are lab grown, but still use the mineral name instead of the chemical name, something I would call fraud.
The problem of minerals on the boundary between natural and not natural can be annoying when I have to decide between my minerals database and my database of synthetic crystals. I wanted to have seperate databases because they really are two different things, but it's clear by now that some specimen are really on the boundary between both. I'll just have to make some choices and stick to them I guess, making logical choices and being consistent is the most important things about it I guess.
The idea of life (bacteria and 'lower' animals) creating the right conditions for minerals to form is very interesting. I think the argument of intention could be used here, but maybe we should make an exception for subconsciously created minerals (assuming bacteria have no conscious ;-) )? You will run into a problem if you only use the term natural, for humans are certainly natural. Using tools could be seen as unnatural, but using your hands to create the right circumstance for minerals to form would in that sense be natural. Ofcourse the intention argument can be used here, but maybe it's better to replace it with the conscious argument, so that animals can create minerals and the groundwater level being lowered without people thinking about creating minerals, would still yield minerals instead of a synthetic version. |
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vic rzonca
Joined: 18 Nov 2008
Posts: 820
Location: MA
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| Posted: Mar 25, 2010 07:44 Post subject: Re: When a mineral can be called a mineral. |
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| Awhile ago I made a refference to an article in Scientific American called "The Evolution of Minerals" by Robert M. Hazel that I think dovetails into the current thread. Maybe a better title for this thread would be "When is a substance called a mineral?". Everything is made of elements, elements are acted upon by by other elements and processes to form other substances. Are bones minerals? Are kidney stones minerals? Efflorescence? Ring around the bath tub? |
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Dawn MinetteCooper
Joined: 06 Feb 2010
Posts: 14
Location: Boron, CA
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| Posted: Mar 25, 2010 20:04 Post subject: Re: When a mineral can be called a mineral. |
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The specimens of tincalconite that were referred to in the discussion of chalcanthite as being artificial present a double question to me. The original specimens were borax that grew in the underground sumps in the old Borax mines at Boron, CA. The sumps formed post mining from groundwater that seeped from borax-bearing ground into low spots and old drifts of the mines and recrystallized. After the specimens were collected and removed from the mines they changed from borax to tincalconite over the years. Eventually some of the specimens were tincalconite pseudomorphs of the original borax crystals. Mineral, or no mineral?
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Happy Collecting--
Dawn |
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