FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Miguel Calvo]

Hello everybody

After 10 years of work, Christian Rewitzer and I have finally managed to complete the book Atlas de minerales de España / Atlas of Spanish minerals. It is a book mainly devoted to images, with all texts in bilingual format, Spanish and English.

It is in large format, 23 x 31 cm, 384 pages, bound in cloth with dust jacket. It is what its name indicates, an atlas, that is to say, apart from the introduction and prologue, the rest are photographs, with captions, in which the name of the mineral, locality, size, collection, photographer and, depending on the case, some information about the deposit or the specimen itself appear. In total, the book includes 2,219 photographs of 927 species. Of these species, several dozen had not yet been cited in Spain. The size of the photographs ranges from full-page to small formats of approximately 5 x 5 cm, depending on what is to be seen. An Asturian fluorite is not the same as a reflected light photo of barquillite and associated sulphides.

We have tried to represent Spanish mineralogy as completely as possible. That is to say, in addition to several pages devoted to the Aliva sphalerite, there is a photo of the massive sphalerite mined as ore at Reocin. It is much more difficult to see a photo of the latter. In fluorite, Berbes and La Collada are widely represented, but you can also see the "sal de lobo" and fluorite microcrystals strung on acicular malachite crystals, which you don't see every day. And next to the iconic Navajún pyrite from the Smithsonian (full page) a smaller photo of a fault mirror in massive pyrite from Tharsis.

I include some pictures of the book, so that everyone can get an idea of what it looks like.

The phosphate page may not look very impressive, but in it you can see the two best schlegelite specimens known in the world, a reaphookhillite (first Spanish locality and second in the world), and also specimens of hechtsbergite, scholzite, schumacherite, and other minerals, not exactly common.

The book costs (about what it is worth I have no opinion) 90 euros, and can be bought directly from the Publisher, Prames.

Regards

[Roy Starkey]

Well done Miguel and Christian!

Having now produced three books on British mineralogy myself I would like to offer my sincere congratulations on your achievement. I understand and fully appreciate the amount of time and effort, not to say pain, that goes into such a project.

I wish you every success with the next phase - sales and distribution - which I personally consider to be much much more difficult that writing the book in the first place :)

Best wishes

Roy

[James Catmur]

I look forward to getting a copy.

[Peter Megaw]

Muchas Felicidades! Aparece un trabajo de valientes!

[Jordi Fabre]

This illustrated Atlas is a fine exhaustive, ordered and precise compilation of the Spanish localities and their minerals. Every locality of the Atlas is of an outstanding precision.

Great job Miguel, everyone who wants to know Spanish mineralogy better should buy this book!