Pat Mason, acting Micro mineral club reporter
We held a fascinating meeting in June, despite absences due to vacations, injuries, and confusion over a date change for the meeting.
Part of our success was due to a great theme, “unique micro minerals with unusual habits.” Maricopa Community College gives a great definition of habit’ online: “Habit is the shape and texture of the mineral. It can refer to the expression of a crystal shape or the shape of multiple crystals aggregated or bunched together.
Besides color, it is often the first thing you might notice about a mineral. Examples of habit would be “prismatic” like a classic clear quartz, or bubbly “botryoidal”, or needle-like “acicular”, etc. Other habits would include massive, bladed, hoppered, sceptered, etc.
This topic resulted in a pretty dazzling array of crystals-you-don’t-see-every-day, brought in by Ray DeMark, Scott Braley, Dave Wells, and Jay Penn. Pat Mason hopped off the Amtrak on her way home from Minneapolis just hours before the meeting, and had no specimens or equipment with her. She was lucky Jay keeps a spare scope on hand for such occasions.
Jay Penn brought 3 odd skeletal/hoppered vanadinites, one in the shape of a question mark, and a vanadinite mount composed of stacked hexagonal chips, with each chip rotated about 30 degrees from the previous one. Also, some odd shaped quartzes and a few crystal twins, and a tray full of other goodies.
Scott & Dave had recently collected at Brushy Mountain, a good micro collecting site northwest of Taos. Sounded like there was some expert back-country driving and exploring to get to the good stuff. Scott brought in some well-developed micros from that expedition, to compare to Ray DeMark’s choice specimens collected years ago. They found psedobrookite, opal, amethyst, hematite, and others.
We debated/discussed whether a twin is a single crystal or multiple crystals, and some of us had our eyes opened to surprising habits and shapes that we didn’t realize some minerals can display.
In June’s News Nuggets, Greg presented a puzzle for readers, to identify what natural materials were used to mount two quite small specimens, each one suspended on top of a very slender pillar.
One was a pyrite brought in by Dave Wells, micro-mounted by AGMC member Joan Karrie. Dave says “the material Joan’s pyrite is mounted on is a squirrel whisker.
This was a technique the late Paul Smith developed for really tiny specimens. Paul was a well known east coast micromounter and taught classes every year.
The other item was a diamond octahedron from Africa, part of Jim Hill’s collection. It turns out to have been mounted on a cactus spine. (Not to be confused with the mesquite thorns he uses for larger specimens). Who knew cactus spines and squirrel whiskers could come in handy for a micro-mounter?
Our July meeting will be held Tuesday, July 15, at the Monte Vista Christian Church on Campus Drive, at 6:30 p.m., and as always, any club member is welcome. If you’re bringing rough material or mounts to show or share, the topic this time will be “red, white, and blue”, and the challenge is to find items which display at least two of those three colors.
Coincidentally, the theme for the 71st annual Tucson TGMS show in February 2026 will also be “Red, White & Blue – Celebrate the Spirit of Minerals!”