The Explorers ...

Here's a picture of the Burgess' from their MojaveUnderground website. What a cute couple. And her name is Crystal! How perfect is that!

Anyway, this was a great presentation of interest to our spouses as well as us hard-core mineral lovers. Thanks to Chuck Adan and to Dave Richerson for setting this up.

P.S. Note that it's still possible to give a fine talk without PowerPoint!

MinDat Articles: Tourmaline Tales

There's some really interesting stuff on MinDat. Tourmaline and other pegmatite minerals are our "Mineral(s) of the Month". The following is brief and informative.

http://www.mindat.org/article.php/1095/Tourmaline+Tales

MinDat is a uniquely valuable resource for mineral amateurs and professionals alike, and it keeps getting better all the time. Check it out.

Tuscon Report by John Veevaert

John Veevaert of Trinity Minerals, Weaverville, California, publishes on the net a series of reports from the annual Tucson show. If you can't be there yourself, this is the next best thing. http://www.mineralshows.com/tucson2011/

I found these comments from the last installment of his 2011 series interesting (good for dealers but bad for the rest of us):

"The mineral market seems to have been sparked back to life after a couple years of many people holding on to their disposable cash during what has now been termed the Great Recession. We're still a long way from the boom times of the mid 2000s but the market is expanding again."

"As I have mentioned in the past there are two general collector types - folks who know about various aspects of mineralogy and those who collect natural art. The natural art collectors are driving prices into the next dimension and in doing so the dealers who cater to them are presenting nice but common minerals with 5, 6 and 7 digits. And I am not including the cents columns either! This makes it difficult for 99% of the rest of the collector community to feel like they can have access to some great minerals."

How come no takers?

The MCU discussion group is about as busy as the bar in downtown Panguitch.

C'mon guys. Sign up for a Google account (free) if you don't have one already, and put in your 2-cents worth.

Your humble webmaster.