Quartz with chlorite inclusions from Dingle

A while ago we went on a family trip to the Dingle Peninsula where, of course, we just HAD TO do some collecting ;) After a while of digging in the upper layer of soil by the cliffs, Klaudia found this little, beautiful quartz crystal with lovely, green inclusions of chlorite. What a treat! And yeah... lucky Klaudia, yhymm ;)

Crystal about 2cm long, chlorite inclusions

Light from behind to show the inclusions

"Flowery" chlorite inclusions in quartz

Found here :)

Lovely views

Cotterites # 2 and 3 :D

Hello everyone.
As you already know, I feel that I have a special relation with the super-rare mineral called Cotterite. It is because it was found in the town where I live, Mallow (Ireland), and because it`s super-rare ;)
Two weeks ago we visited the National Museum in Dublin where we had a chance to see many great specimens (there will be a separate post on it), including Cotterite.
The first one we saw is on display in the Museum of Natural History. It is smaller than the one we saw at UCC, but bigger than the third one (see below).

Cotterite on display in the Museum of Natural History, Dublin

The above photo was taken through glass and therefore is not really good.

Then, thanks to staff members of the National Museum, we were able to see the second Cotterite, which is a part of the UCD collection.

UCD collection Cotterite

UCD collection Cotterite

UCD collection Cotterite

UCD collection Cotterite

UCD collection Cotterite

I`m glad I know the name of Miss Cotter now :)

This way we have now seen three of of only four Cotterites ever found. The fourth one is in Great Britain and this is currently my goal to see it one day, to have my "collection of Cotterites" complete ;)

Owenahincha super pocket and a few unknowns

Owenahincha (it took me a while to learn the name of this place ;) ) beach is one of my favourite spots in Ireland, both for relaxing (the beach is almost always empty, and it is so beautiful) and collecting ( we always find something nice).

That day we were hoping to find some better hamatite samples, maybe some quartzes, but what we found was beyond our dreams!

First, Klaudia came across a small pocket and spent an hour taking out a single quartz cluster. This trip would be worth it even if we found this specimen ONLY.

A few undamaged tips + one crystal with flowery chlorite inclusions= a great specimen!

Chlorite inclusions in quartz

Meanwhile I found a rock with potential, I noticed a few small quartz tips sticking out of clay. I called Klaudia and we started digging carefully in the clay. We found only a few small crystals, though. However, Klaudia switched on her "crystal radar" and her "crystal nose" sniffed THAT POCKET! On top of the rock, in a place I wouldn`t even try to reach! Sometimes it helps to be tall and have long legs ;) While I was still digging a bit lower, she was taking out crystal after crystal from that big pocket! Some of them the size of a thumb, some clusters, some double terminated... All dirty, so we still didn`t know what was hidden under the clay. We were to discover it at home, after giving the specimens a few days long bath in my son`s plastic bathtub.

I first spotted this badly weathered, rotten, ugly quartz "cluster", literally falling apart in my hands. I brushed it gently and noticed some pink crystals under all this rotten, stinky stuff. I didn`t know what it was, I only knew it wasn`t quartz. It actually took over two weeks of studying the crystals before, with Thomas` help I was able to find out what it was- ALBITE!

Klaudia on the rock, the huge pocket with albite was higher

Quartz, albite and limonite, photo taken through macro lenses for a mobile phone

 After cleaning we also realized that we have something else. What I initially considered clay turned out to be most likely limonite after pyrite and limonite after siderite.

Here are a few out of over 30 crystals and clusters from this pocket:

one of my favourites!

Limonite pseudomorphs after pyrite

quartz

A beautiful, about 4cm high quartz cluster. Excellent specimen with many clear, undamaged crystals

Thank you Thomas for editing my pictures :)

Some other, unedited photos:

Specimen about 3.5cm

Same specimen

Another nice cluster, about 3cm

Albite and limonite

Broken...

...but only for a while :D

Another one, broken...

... and fixed :)

Another favourite, here still wet after a bath in a detergent with some lemon juice (great method for removing iron, by the way)

I will add photos of the limonite after siderite, so come back if you are interested to see them. And also, I am currently investigating what is the pink stuff covering my crystals.

This day we went to look for hematite, but we found none. We found other treasures. But we went back to Owenahincha shortly after this trip and this time found our hematite- LOTS.OF.HUGE.HEMATITES! Check out my next post!

Hope you enjoyed :D