FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Robson Vieira]

Are there some tips to help differentiate scolecite from natrolite and thomsonite? How can I identify acicular and radial zeolite specimens without technical tools such as XRD? The question is more in terms of radial clusters than isolated crystals, but any help is appreciated.

[Bergur_E_Sigurdarson]

I've been struggling with ID-ing some zeolites myself.
As most of my finds here in Iceland are of that group.

Been on two short afternoon trips to my favourite locality, that is close by me here in the capital region, Hvaleyri.
( https://www.mindat.org/loc-13212.html )

Where some finds leave me wondering exactly what mineral they are.
Especially with those small fluffy balls :-P

I have mostly been using visual comparison to what I see on mindat... but that is of course quite limited... both in the source being correct as well as my capability to compare!

Did strike a nice big (relatively for the location) vug of mainly Stilbites just two days ago
...attaching a couple of images.
Most XLS are over a cm...and even up and possibly over 2 in some parts... and unusual in my experience for the location too... most of the main vug has a hint of pink in it.

Thankfully I'm at least not struggling with ID on the Stilbite :-D