Earth Treasures Show 2016

This is the annual holiday rock and mineral show of the Los Alamos Geologic Society. I spent some time there today and took a few pictures, which I present without much comment.

Fuchsite is chromium muscovite (mica). Orthoceras was an Ordovician mollusc related to the modern nautilus.

Ruby (though not of gem quality) in zoisite. Zoisite is the iron-poor end member of the epidote series, a calcium-aluminum sorosilicate. Sorosilicates are minerals built around a backbone of silica dimers.

Garnets’R’Us?

Particularly good specimens from the Nacimiento Mine.

Impressive almandine garnet at center here.

I believe the last two are from Patrick Rowe’s collection. Speaking of which:

Gastropods fossilized in carnelian:

Some nice fossils, including fish from the Green River Formation.

My own favorite shopping area (since my budget is limited):

My purchases this year:

Some nicely crystallized epidote from Colorado, a tektite from Vietnam, and a chunk of camelid bone from right here. Why purchase a camelid bone fragment when they can be hunted locally? Because hunting vertebrate fossils on public lands is a no-no, and I don’t have collecting rights on any private lands.

The tektite will go nicely with my shatter cones from the Santa Fe impact structure.

One of the favorites at every show is the geode purchase and cut service.

I persuaded the geode team to let me pay a few quatloos to cut one of the concretions I picked up at the Nacimiento Mine a couple of months back. Turned out pretty good.

I may take a crack at polishing these surfaces.

Anyway, the show seemed to be another big success.