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Tom Mazanec
Joined: 11 Feb 2016
Posts: 139
Location: Twinsburg, Ohio
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Posted: Feb 07, 2021 09:43 Post subject: New locations |
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Are we still getting new mineral locations? Or have they all been pretty much found? What are the big 21st Century discoveries, if any? |
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Bob Harman
Joined: 06 Nov 2015
Posts: 765
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Posted: Feb 07, 2021 11:14 Post subject: Re: New locations |
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TOM, This is actually a far more widespread and complex topic than your brief question suggests.
If you are talking narrowly about mineral specimen collecting localities in the continental US, then I believe most localities reliably producing quality (!) collectable mineral specimens have already been found, especially East of the Rocky Mountains. Small isolated finds, mostly of mediocre examples will continue to be found, but most will not amount to much.
In the West finds will sporadically continue, especially by consortiums, with financial backing. Like opening up old mines and sites which look promising.......like the Sweet Home Mine in Colorado. Truly "new" important finds of highly collectable specimens will be few and only in remote, hard to mine areas. That is my opinion of the continental US.
In other parts of the world, Africa, South America, and multiple parts of Asia, new localities are being be found, currently often in association of commercial ore mining. In 2021 and beyond, the mineral collecting community will continue to see new specimens from these new localities, with most coming from mining districts.
Stand alone collector mineral specimen mining, with big financial backing, in other parts of the world is just beginning. New finds of hi quality (!) examples, not associated with ore mines, might become the big deal in the next 20 years.
As reference, look at what is currently being offered at the large international shows. Virtually all "new finds" of consequence are from abroad . No truly new hi quality finds, other than a few additions, from here or there known localities, are from the US. BOB |
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James Catmur
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Sep 2006
Posts: 1343
Location: Cambridge
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Posted: Feb 07, 2021 11:25 Post subject: Re: New locations |
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Bob Harman wrote: |
In the West US finds will sporadically continue. Truly "new" important finds of highly collectable specimens will be few and only in remote, hard to mine areas. |
I know of a couple but cannot tell you about them as I agreed to keep them secret. Very remote localities. Very nice specimens from one of them (well the one I was given is). |
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John Betts
Joined: 07 Jun 2012
Posts: 207
Location: New York City
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Posted: Feb 07, 2021 11:53 Post subject: Re: New locations |
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New finds are always being made. For example the amethyst locality from La Manche, Newfoundland. There are new finds in Maine, NH, Connecticut, NY that I am aware of, but like James wrote, I am not free to share them because they are being quietly worked to avoid night raiders. _________________ John Betts |
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Bob Harman
Joined: 06 Nov 2015
Posts: 765
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Posted: Feb 07, 2021 13:23 Post subject: Re: New locations |
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I should have noted, in my original posting, that the phrase "new mineral locations" needs to be precisely defined.
My personal definition of a "new location" includes the caveats that the location eventually becomes publicly identified, then is recorded as a "locality". And that at least some of the specimens found there be of respectable collector quality, for sale by collectors or dealers at a show and be available to the general collecting community, not associated with the original find. If none of these criteria are met, their will always be questions about the find being....."a new locality"???
In addition a "new locality" needs to be differentiated from "working an old locality".
For example, the Illinois fluorite district closed in 1995. Between 1985 and 1995 many quality specimens were mined. Everyone knows there is still ore and mineral specimens in the ground. If ore or specimen mining started again right now, I might consider this reworking an old locality, but if specimens were again collected there beginning 50+ years from now, with a whole generation of new mineral collectors, I might consider these to be from a new locality......sort of a matter of semantics and definition of terms. BOB |
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Firmo Espinar
Joined: 05 Apr 2017
Posts: 755
Location: Medellín, Colombia.
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Posted: Feb 08, 2021 17:13 Post subject: Re: New locations |
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Hi Tom.
I believe that every year Morocco offers something new, either new locality or new pits in well-known mining localities.
For example the recent gold find from an undisclosed mine that has been discovered in 2020 in Aouint Ighoman, Assa-Zag Province, Guelmim-Oued Noun Region, Morocco.
This country offered in 2019 a new vanadinite discovery at a greater depth than usual in the Coud'a área, in the the well known Mibladen mining district, Midelt Province, Drâa-Tafilalet Region. These high quality specimens were very lustrous and with a vivid and uniform red color.
Also in Mohamedine, in the Coud'a área, a new type of vanadinite came out in 2012 .
I guess the same may be said for several larger countries than Morocco like China, Brazil, USA, Mexico, Russia, although the first is a major producer of minerals.
Regards. |
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alfredo
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Jan 2008
Posts: 979
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Posted: Feb 12, 2021 00:28 Post subject: Re: New locations |
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There are certainly completely new localities being found. One example is new things exposed by major construction projects. In recent years the construction of the high speed rail network in Spain exposed several great new localities, although collectors have only a short window of opportunity to collect in the new cuts before everything gets fenced off. (Apparently they don't want people working with hammers and chisels beside the tracks while trains are speeding by at almost 200 miles an hour.) A California friend was able to collect a pegmatite in the city of Riverside in an excavation for a new building construction. She got a few trips in before she found one day that "her" hole had been covered with concrete. A giant green epidote-included quartz from that find, which weighs a couple hundred pounds (I couldn't lift it) is now in the California State Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa.
Another source of new localities is glacier retreat. Anyone who has gone to the Munich show in recent years may have noticed the abundance of Swiss quartz crystals, many of which are from newly exposed Alpine-type veins where glaciers have retreated in the onslaught of global warming. There will undoubtedly be more new virgin mineral localities uncovered by retreating glaciers in the far northern Rockies and in the Andes and the Himalayas.
One more factor to take into account is that vast areas of the planet have never or rarely been visited by field collectors or mineral dealers, even though they have geological environments that could produce interesting specimens. Where are all the great mineral specimens from the Philippines, Surinam, El Salvador, Eritrea, Somaliland, etc? There will be new localities found there in future, but we've barely scratched the surface in those and many other countries. |
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James Catmur
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Sep 2006
Posts: 1343
Location: Cambridge
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Posted: Feb 12, 2021 04:00 Post subject: Re: New locations |
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Very true. As collectors visit areas with a view to checking for minerals, they may spot things others have not. Within the UK I have found two localities that, as far as I can find out, no one else has reported. Neither are locations that will produce world class material but they are still interesting. I have also often found localities within construction sites, but again nothing world class |
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