Thomas and a microscope

One day I received an e-mail from a man from Germany, Thomas, in which he offered me help and advice concerning cleaning my personally collected specimens. We went on exchanging e-mails on a regular basis and after a few weeks Thomas became my mentor :)
Thomas has been collecting for the last 50 years or so, and has amazingly wide knowledge in the field, especially when it comes to chemistry. He gives me homeworks to do and guides me, feeds me with tonnes of useful and digestive information, he tells me things that would be very hard or impossible to find in books. Sometimes when I work with him (via WhatsApp) I feel like a detective trying to find the correct answer or the right solution. It doesn`t only broaden my knowledge, but it is also super fun to do!!!

One day Thomas told me that he found a nice, used microscope for a reasonable price. I didn`t want to buy a scope at that time as I felt my knowledge was still too poor and I thought that instead of buying a scope I should just study more, but he convinced me that this is a great offer and I should definitely go for it! So I agreed. The microscope was sent to Thomas and he thought he could fill in empty spaces in the box with samples. He bought some stuff for me at a local mineral show, and added some of his stones. The package weighted almost 20 kgs!!! ;)

It arrived 2 days ago

It felt like Christmas! Unpacking dozens of stones, each of them a surprise!!!!

My sister`s bed was a mess! About 40 specimens wrapped in newspaper. Now I know the prices of meat and beer in Germany and I`m up to date with current affairs, too ;)

Here are a few of my new specimens, most of them from Germany, of course!!!

Unfortunately, 3 specimens arrived broken :(

And the last one... calcite that I had fallen in love with. Thomas was looking for it at the show but couldn`t find it and eventually... sent me his own specimen!!!!

Absolutely beautiful and very precious for me

My first photo taken through the scope. Oh yes!!! - I realize it`s far from being perfect!!!!! ;)

 

 Tomorrow, together with Klaudia, my boyfriend and Stephen from Dublin we are going to the Mourne Mountains in the Northern Ireland to collect aquamarine, topaz, smoky quartz and other granite/pegmatite minerals! Wish us luck and good weather! Hurraaaayyyyyyy!!!!

Rainbow Aura Quartz

Today I`d like to show you my Rainbow Aura Quartz, which I got from my sister as a Xmas gift.

Such specimens are natural crystals coated with some sort of metal (titanium, gold, silver, ...).

About 4cm long, 3 cm wide and 2.5-3 cm high Rainbow Aura Quartz

" Flame or rainbow aura quartz have been enhanced with a combination of titanium and niobium. Titanium molecules are bonded to the quartz by the natural electrostatic charge of the crystal in a process known as magnetron ionization. The brilliant color of flame aura is the result of optical interference effects produced by layers of titanium. Since only electricity is used to deposit the titanium layers and create these colors, very little heat is involved and the integrity of the crystal is maintained. The crystal does not become brittle or prone to breakage as with other enhancements."- source: Wikipedia

Photos of Rainbow Aura Quartz from the Internet:

Hematite and chlorite

Masses of green, soft chlorite on rocks

I promised you a rapport a week ago but I just didn`t have time for this post. With a small delay- here it is.

The locality we are talking about is on one of the beaches near Rosscarbery. We went there to look for hematite only, and at first we couldn`t find it at all. Instead, we came across massive amounts of chlorite (got a hint that could be clinochlorite, but test would have to been made to confirm this)

we caught  high tide and couldn`t go any further

chlorite on rocks

 We found pieces of shiny mica-like stuff and thought it would be mica. After scratch test with "raw" porcelain (the botton of a mug) it actually turned out to be hematite! Yeeey!

a mixture of hematite, chlorite, quartz and pink/orange quartz (?)

Klaudia cleaned one quartz pocket (another locality in Roscarberry) and managed to take out a nice crystal

 Chlorite piece taken home:

It`s green, even though it doesn`t really look green ;)

Overall, it was a very nice trip!

PS We have planned a trip to the Mourne Mts with a fellow-collector from Dublin, we`ll be looking for smoky quartz, aquamarine, topaz and many other in granite :) Can`t wait!!!!!!

Ballyhass Lakes- round three!

OK, soooo...
following the advice of Mindaters, we returned to the Ballyhass to dig a bit deeper and look for better fluorite. Klaudia is now back from her holiday, so nothing stood in my way anymore.

Klaudia on her way. Note the weather- in the middle of summer in Ireland!

The staff over there remembered us and, as usual, they were very friendly and had nothing against. The owner/ manager of the place even asked us for a few samples so he could display for everyone to see. We have already given him some fossils, but we will go back there to present him a few fluorite pieces and take home 2 huge (each about 20kg heavy) pieces of rock with the syringopora coral fossil, that Klaudia discovered yesterday here:

Soil with lots of stones, simply paradise! ;)

 

One of two huuuge coral fossils

In this soil we also found this

Klaudia with her milky quartz crystals, niiiceeee

And our XXXXL version of it found a moment after Klaudia`s

Biggest crystal twice the size of my thumb nail

A small fossil...

But we got there because of fluorite!!! So...
... we decided to check all veins in which we found fluorite the first and second time, but in fact only one of them was still rich in it. We kept on digging, about 10cm deep

about 8 cm deep, more fluorite appearing

It wasn`t easy to dig, as we needed to climb a bit a we were sliding down! Our muscles were shaking and we had to change every few minutes. Klaudia has a corn on her hand from holding the hammer and I hit my hand with a hammer for the first time. It was ouch!

The vein was getting purple more and more!

And then- BINGO!!!! Some solid stuff!!!

While Klaudia was hanging on the rock, changing positions...

... I went for a walk to check out the surroundings. I found this (a fossil?) and left it there ;)

And unfortunately, we also had to leave these crystals, because they were impossible to take out

And this is what I chose for myself and kept in my collection

Check my rapport on hematite and chlorite tomorrow!