FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[cookie-cutter-rockstar]

I've looked through numerous books and couldn't really find any useful information on the internet and have found nothing that really helps. I am trying to put all my Rocks/Minerals/Gemstones into a sort of catalog system and need to know theses things

- Colour
- Hardness
- Fracture
- Cleavage
- Crystal System
- Specific Gravity
- Composition
- Lustre
- Streak

I don't really know how to test for these things although this would be a possibility so if anyone has any suggestions on what to do I would be grateful for the help.

[mmauthner]

Dear A,

Not quite sure what your question is...

A) If you want to know about serpentinite and do not have a book on rocks, check out wikipedia...it has good information about this rock type (not mineral).

B) If you are looking for a cataloging system, there are several was to approach that. Simplest is to number your specimens then start a catalogue by number with descriptions next to that number. You can always update species, variety, locality or such other information... It is best to understand the kind of information you want to collect and store before designing a catalogue.

C) Mineral analysis...the properties you mentioned are testable using methods described in common collector field guides or introductory collector-oriented books such as Fred Pough's "Field Guide to Rocks & Minerals" or John Sinkankas' "Mineralogy"...more sophisticated mineral analysis books are also available.

Hope that helps.

Mark

[gemlover]

go here, free mineral collection catalog program.

https://carlesmillan.cat/min/index.php?source=z13D4B-0000E

john

[John S. White]

As it is not at all clear what your question is, I would just like to say that if you are indeed considering adopting a cataloging system, you do not want to be wasting your time by entering the physical properties in your catalog, I hope this is obvious. You should not enter information that is readily available in any good mineral textbook. What you should enter is the nature of the material (name), the locality, details of how you acquired it including date, supplier, cost, etc., and perhaps some reference as to where the piece may be found in your collection (display cabinet, drawer #, box #, etc.).

[Matt_Zukowski]

I just went through the free software posted above. Nice program, especially the support for multiple pictures for each specimen (the other free software I looked at only allowed 1 picture). Still, I wanted something even more capable, and so I am using MineralDB:
https://www.mineraldb.com
(link normalized by FMF)
It prints labels, and has databases of mineral names and localities that make data entry fast and consistent.

[Matt_Zukowski]

MineralDB also includes databases of physical properties, which I did not think was useful. However, perhaps this gets at Cookie-Cutter's issue.

[cookie-cutter-rockstar]

I'm new to this and didn't really know how to go about making a catalogue system but thanks to this forum I have found out quite a lot of how to go about it and especially from what you have contributed. So thank you ever so much I will definitely do that now.

Thanks again!