Oh, good! I've been waiting for this thread!


Here is the evil eye, keeping a lookout for John Stolz... ;-)




A 3.0 cm broken nodule of fine-grained hematite is host to a 1.5 cm lump of dull grey uraninite with some minor shiny black magnetite. The nodule has been weathered out of a fluorite - calcite - fluorapatite vein exposed on the surface. Though by no means will this win any beauty contests, it is an unusual association not previously described from the Richardson (Fission) Mine, nor from the Bancroft area in general.

...ooops 'scuse me--wrong thread

What is Akathite? Is this a typo for acanthite?

Peter,

Sometimes kaolinite included inside quartz crystals would rate as attractive. There were many quartz crystals from the the White Queen mine at Pala that were cut in half to show pretty inclusions of kaolinite? Probably some of the minerals you list might have incarnations as pretty pseudomorphs after?? Has anyone ever analysed those fabulous "talc" pseudomorphs from Göpfersgrün, Bavaria, Germany? Are they really talc?

Just to prove Jolyon right (sort of)... a Quebec beauty, but found so close to the Ontario border that it could claim a partial Ontario pedigree, was once called a "dog's breakfast" by a fellow Ontarian... certainly a dog's something:-)

Diopside on mica ....15cm x13cm x8cm and weighs 4 pounds.

This is easy, I only collect ugly minerals.

I'll ease into it with this pink fluocerite from the Little Patsy Mine.

-Dean Allum

Emerald chips in matrix Spruce Pine, North Carolina is my aesthetically challenged contribution.

4.5 x 3.9 cm.

http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?file,0,file=39667,filename=NCEmerald.jpg


Along with this bornite covered calcite from Kazakhstan.

8.9 x 6.5 cm

Long term readers of the Mineralogical Record may remember that Excalibur Mineral Co ran an advertisement for 'Ten Ugly Minerals' in which, on payment of $30, this dealer promised to supply ten specimens which were definitely ugly. I've attached a copy of the ad from 1991 for nostalgia purposes.


More seriously though, I've often seen the case where student geologists or geology graduates buy an illustrated mineral book in order to help them identify minerals in the field. Problem is most of these books pick good, very good and sometimes superb examples to illustrate, specimens you might never come across in a lifetime of field work. For example, most times corundum you'll see in metamorphic rocks is greyish grungy looking stuff rather than a sharp group of ruby crystals in marble from Mogok.

You are doing a service to young field geologists, and amateur mineralogists by illustrating ugly (and more typical) examples of any species on Mindat, because that is most likely what they will see in the field.

Love this thread!


Readers may recall a post last year about the "turd-y" looking thorite crystals that we left behind at the Kemp prospect. This one we did bring home because of the peculiar growth habit. We call it the Mercedes of Thorite crystals.


More views here http://www.mindat.org/photo-458823.html

Rob,


love the lead. I wish I had a piece like that... Somewhat surprised by the "radioactive" with the maucherite as I usually have not seen it with uraninite, just with the black shale. Is that radioactive?


Anyway, I love this forum. As you said beware of sulfide collectors on this. I have actually started writing an article called "the grey, the black, and the ugly" talking about rare minerals...


Here are my grey, black and uglies..


an aguilarite (two habits, tiny dodecs and elongated) from Mexico


Kostovite vein with gold (specimen about 4 cm wide) from Golden Mile


tellurantimony xx (grey ca. 2mm xx) with petzit from Nagyag


Frank

I believe someone mentioned diadochite as an ugly possibility and I wholeheartedly agree. So here is my contribution to this thread - a diadochite from the Dexter #7, San Rafael Swell, Utah.


Michael Shaw

Uglies! I'm game :)

Then I throw-in a quick snapshot of my precious Borrowdale graphite (7x4x3cm massive)

One of the most beautiful specimens in my little collection, thanks to Kate....




Cheers! Frank

I'll bite, speaking of Franklin. I do have one ugly which I'm rather fond of as it contradicts the generally accepted description of this species.

Though not one of the specimens I acquired directly from John Cianciulli, it did come to me via the Franklin Mineral Museum.



Pyrite xtls on Franklin ore, with minor calcite and Willemite (Primary, not secondary or ex-solution). Very unusual!


For those of you who have a copy of Peter Dunns book, you may want to add a minor note to the Pyrite section which states pyrite associated primarily with the marbles, only occasionally within the ore body but not in direct association with it. Apparently direct association, albeit rare, does occur. Ah, geology . . . never say never. ;)



MRH

OK, I can’t stay out of this any longer. It was Rob’s posting of my tellurantimony from Matagami that made me come out of the closet. However, I will say that I was astounded at a specimen posted by Stephanie Martin when she began the thread. I also have a piece of rheniite, and mine is bigger than yours, Stephanie! It’s just that my photo is of a very small section where I was able to catch the reddish internal reflections. RHENIITE IS BEAUTIFUL! It’s beautiful because it is rhenium sulfide. What more needs to be said?


And if that wasn’t enough, Alfredo posted a rock specimen containing water-worn glauconite granules. Glauconite is actually a “trash-can” name (perfect kind of name for glauconite, huh, Alfredo?) for a group of minerals that may include true glauconite or may not. It is the sedimentologist’s key to a marine environment of deposition under circumstances where no other indicator is definitive. Therefore, who couldn’t love “glauconite?”


Further down the list, Rob posted a photos of rosickyite. But it’s just a hand specimen photo. A close-up would show very nice crystals of the mineral that would delight any crystal lover. And if that wasn’t insult enough to my sensibilities, Rob then showed a photo that I posted of tellurantimony from Matagami. Geez!–this is antimony telluride (DUH!)–how could anyone not love it?


You know what I am going to do? I am going to post photos of some of my mineral specimens that you all might think are NO-GOOD, BAD, or UGLY, but in fact are beautiful. They include argutite, coulsonite, rubicline. And you can’t say they are not beautiful, because they are invisible. They are in the space below. Check them out! (Actually, I did think about starting a thread on invisible minerals, but decided to post these here.)
















I know each of the above specimens is beautiful. After all, argutite is germanium oxide (tiny indistinguishable crystalline inclusions in sphalerite). How many of you have germanium oxide? Couslonite is a an iron vanadate that forms micron-scale exsolution lamellae in magnetite. Think of it–exsolution lamellae! And rubicline is the rubidium analogue of microcline–it’s visually indistinguishable from the minerals surrounding it, but it’s a freakin’ rubidium mineral, folks! Do YOU have a mineral with Rb in the formula? WELL, DO YOU, PUNK?


(with apologies to Clint Eastwood, or should I say, Dirty Harry?).


Anyway, after excitedly obtaining each one of these (and many others), I lovingly labeled it and placed it in a space of honor in a special drawer. I open the drawers and admire them frequently, and every time each one brings a smile to my heart and soul.

Yes, Alfredo, but that's a whole different discussion.


Nevertheless, I know what you mean, from watching the sales pages and auction sites for specimens from Lookout Pass that, one or the other, reportedly include every thallium mineral reported from there, but they all appear to be identical to me. I fear that in the specimens I have and that I have personally collected at Lookout Pass, there are are not as many different minerals in them as has been reported. But I plan to run analyses to see what minerals are really in them. So, in that regard, this is not really faith, because faith, by definition, concerns tenets that are beyond checking scientifically. However, every specimen posted on mindat, for example, is at least in principle verifiable. So, IN PRINCIPLE, it is not accepted by fatih. It's just that it is simply impracticable for everyone to have an analysis run on even the relatively small number in their collections that are in question. If we were all rich and conscientious enough to do it, they could all be verified or disproved.

Yes, :)-D


And it was someone else who introduced the invisible mineral concept (but I like it).

I wonder what percentage of all mineral species would qualify as invisible? That must be going up in leaps and bounds these days.

Per Stepahnie's comments, unfortunately I am a sucker for a good photo. For those of us in this boat, we should consider that our payment for some drab mineral specmen actually includes the cost of that magical photo. Just remember to download the photo, too--you paid for it! :-D:-(:-X

Fun thread, tho I'll never bump into most of the species mentioned. My least favorite organism on the planet is thiobacillus ferroxidans, for its appetite for turning lovely pyrite into brown mush. Have many Spruce specimens somewhere between munched and dissolved. A particularly unattractive one here, supported by an otherwise nice quartz scepter.


Bob

Old photo, also ugly.

This is not really an invisible mineral. It’s just that you cannot see the difference between the halloysite-7Å and kaolinite, to say nothing of halloysite-7Å and halloysite-10Å. I posted this photo in the mindat gallery on January 13 of 2012, and it became the head photo because no one had previously posted a photo of halloysite-7Å. Paradoxically, this is one of the more common minerals on the face of the Earth. By that I mean at the Earth’s surface, because it forms in the weathering environment above the current level of the water table. It is mentioned (usually simply as “halloysite,” depending on date of publication) in literally hundreds of geological publications, usually concerning specific sites and concentrating on surficial geology and soils. Not only will this photo never make “Photo of the Day,” the mineral will also never make it into very many mineral collections. I won’t claim this one is beautiful, but it sure is an important mineral, scientifically. Maybe the right category for it would be “unappreciated minerals.” Maybe, like what you see in “Ugliest Dog in the World” contests, it takes a special (twisted?) collector to love it.

Depending on the locality, there might even be invisible Jordanite in it!

Here's another candidate for an ugly duckling from Ontario - even the name is ugly: labelled "anthraxolite"! We picked this up at the Gemboree this past weekend. Another species struck from the "need it" list! Reiner will test to see if it qualifies as thucolite.


Pyrobitumen

Locality: Chelmsford, Balfour Township, Sudbury District, Ontario, Canada

6.0 x 3.5 x 4.0 cm

Here's one that raises my hackles every time I see it:


These came out of Mibladen in the late 90's. I've only seen a couple, and I was unfortunate enough to buy one.


Dull orange hexagons of vanadinite on rusty ole goethite. The luster on these vanadinites is about as bad as it can get, plus they're scratched, pitted, and generously chipped around the edges. A few crushed crystals are thrown in for good measure. The goethite itself looks more like slag, and it provides a nice contrast. Size is 3.2 x 2.7 x 2.3.


If anyone is interested in this piece, PM me quickly and I'll fish it out of the trash.

I think we need to differentiate between ugly specimens that are normally not, and ugly specimens that are as beautiful as they get. Otherwise there will be no end to just plain bad boring specimens. However maybe I have it all wrong and this thread is for showing the things most people don't want to see, welcome to the rocks on my driveway. LOL

Stephanie Martin Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Reiner, I imagine the rocks in your driveway may

> be visually unappealling but could be quite

> interesting... post a photo! lol.

>

> There are no limits in this thread as far as how

> to define no good, bad or ugly, anyone can post an

> explanation with their subject. Yes, potentially

> the thread could go on a long, long time. ;-)

>

> Uwe, I think there was a thread a while back

> regarding posting "the one that started it all".

> I'll try and find the link.

>

> cheers,

> stephanie :-)


I think this is the link.
How Did You Collect Your First Mineral?