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News from the world of mineralogy and items of interest to Russell Society members.
Earth Treasures Conference Charnwood Book "Kryptonite" Mineralogy of Wales Caldbeck Fells Mendips Minerals Update Coed Y Brenin
If you have any topics of interest, mineral news, information or events that you wish to publicise to Russell Society members, or the wider mineralogical community, then please email details to who will include them on this page.
"Earth Treasures - interactions with humans" Conference.
Later this year a major joint meeting of the Russell Society Mineralogical Society and the Gemmological Association is being organised for Sunday December 7th 2008 at the Natural History Museum in London. This promises to be a significant event so put it in your diaries now.
The provisional agenda for the day as of February 2008 is:
Presentations will be by well known and knowledgeable experts in their field.
As more information becomes available it will be published here so come back to keep up to date.
New Book Exploring the landscape of Charnwood Forest and Mountsorrel.
With its distinctive scenery of rolling hills and stark, craggy knolls, Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire has long been regarded as one of the classic areas of British geology.
This book and map pack holds a 1:25 000 scale geological map while the accompanying booklet explains the events that have happened in this area during the past 600 million years of Earth history.
Eleven linked walks take the visitor to spectacular exposures of rocks formed close to ancient Precambrian volcanoes, when the landscape of Leicestershire resembled today’s Montserrat. These walks also show evidence for what was happening in the surrounding seas of the time, where feather-like organisms now known as Britain’s oldest fossils once flourished. Also to be seen are traces of former Carboniferous coral reefs, Triassic deserts and the Arctic conditions of the last Ice Age.
Each walk is shown on the geological map, which also shows photographs of the most common rock types found in the area. Together, the book and map offer a real understanding of why the Charnwood area looks the way it does today. Specially designed for the walker, this pack assumes no prior knowledge of geology but presents the information clearly, with no jargon. There is something here for everyone, from the Sunday stroller to the keen walker, as well as both amateur and professional geologists.
Ordering details for the new book can be found on the BGS web site.
"Kryptonite" found at the NHM.
Recently new mineral almost matching the fictional kryptonite's unique chemistry, "sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with fluorine", as described in the film Superman Returns, has been identified by geologists at the Natural History Museum and Canada's National Research Council.
The green crystals of kryptonite have a devastating affect on Superman. However, unlike the legendary material, the new mineral is white, powdery and not radioactive. Also, rather than coming from outer space, the real kryptonite was found in Serbia.
Geologists and mineralogists from mining group Rio Tinto discovered the unusual mineral. It didn't match anything known previously to science so they sort the help of Dr Chris Stanley at the Natural History Museum. Do not miss the video of Mike Rumsey describing how they found the match.
More information on the new find can be found on the NHM site. You can view the discovery video here.
National Museum of Wales - Mineralogy of Wales On-line.
Of the currently around 4,000 officially recognized mineral species known to occur globally some 365 have been confirmed from Wales, with a further 50 or so listed in the literature but which have never been properly confirmed. There are 12 minerals for which Wales is the type locality and an amazing 71 for which Wales is the first recorded UK occurrence.
This site provides a comprehensive and authoritative listing of all known mineral species from Wales. By knowing what we have, we can value and conserve our geological heritage.
This site consists of two main parts, the main mineral entries (see the Mineral Database) and pages that provide background information. This gives both a brief history of the science of mineralogy in Wales up to the present day, and also provides geological details as to the way in which minerals occur and are associated with each other.
To visit this excellent site follow this link Mineralogy of Wales
Caldbeck Fells Collecting Policy
The Lake District National Park Authority has now put details of the restrictions on mineral collecting and the permit system on their website. From this page you can access maps of the controlled areas and permit application forms.
The mineral on the Caldbeck Fells are fragile and finite. So that uncontrolled collection does not cause damage the LDNPA have adopted this mineral collecting policy on the Caldbeck and Uldale Commons. This has the support of the Russell Society and many other interested parties.
You can access the relevant page from this link Caldbeck Fells.
Mendip Minerals - An Update
The Russell Society President, Rick Turner has been carrying out extensive research work on the mineralogy of Torr Works quarry (Merehead quarry) and has produced a short article updating the known mineralogy to December 2006. This was published in the Russell Society Newsletter Issue 50 - March 2007. It is available here (Merehead Update (Adobe PDF file))as part of our continuing project to disseminate information about the mineralogy of the Mendips as a whole.
The Southern Branch Reference List of Mendip Minerals is a complete list of known minerals found in the Mendips area. This list is invaluable to collectors visiting the sites in in the area and is available here as an Adobe PDF file. This document will be kept up to date as our knowledge of the area grows so if you have any contributions or new finds for the area then please let us know. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader® to view these files. The list incorporates all the changes in the Merehead update and now contains one hundred identified minerals from the Mendips area.
Rick has placed some images of the Merehead minerals on Mindat which can be accessed from here.
The porphyry-copper exposure at Capel Hermon in Coed Y Brenin - Notified by Alan Dyer.
Hopefully you all enjoyed reading the note in Vol. 8.1 of the Journal on tennantite and tyrolite from Capel Hermon in Coed Y Brenin by Armstrong, Herrington and Savage from the British Museum (Natural History).
John Mason has contacted us with his concerns that the sensitivity and significance of the porphyry-copper exposure were not properly emphasised. He would like to remind everyone that the importance of the exposure in question was identified during the Gwynedd phase of the MINESCAN project in 1997 and that it has since been designated as an SSSI - i.e., it is protected by law. IT MUST NOT BE HAMMERED as this will quickly diminish its usefulness. People interested in the mineralogy should be able to find samples (mostly of micro quality) in the spoil along the bank to the left of the exposure. We would like to thank John Mason for bringing this to our attention, and would ask all persons reading this notice to spread the word appropriately amongst fellow collectors and amateur mineralogists/geologists
The Coed Y Brenin "ore-zone" is almost totally buried by overburden and this is by far the finest exposure of it, and in addition it is one of the finest exposures of a porphyry-copper deposit in the UK. In 1998, the section was carefully cleared of talus and soil in a joint operation between Forest Enterprise and the Countryside Council for Wales in order to improve its quality. It is now an integral part of a new geological trail in the Coed Y Brenin forest. The trail covers aspects of regional geology and in particular the mineralization associated with the porphyry-copper system, both primary and supergene. Some sites such as the Turf Copper Mine may be familiar to members, while others will be new, such as another trackside exposure, again a SSSI, which reveals brecciation, silica and pyrite mineralization in what appears to be the "roots" of an ancient fumarolic system. The latter site is illustrated on John's website www.geologywales.co.uk/roads.htm
The trail officially opened in the Spring of 2004. Interpretation panels have been set up at each site and a trail guide will be available from the Coed Y Brenin visitor centre.
Alan Dyer
Reference: Bevins, R.E. & Mason, J.S. 1998: Welsh Metallophyte and metallogenic evaluation project: Results of a Minesite Survey of Gwynedd. National Museums & Galleries of Wales.
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