[Rockhounds] [External] Mineral ID

[Gay, Kenny]

Looks a like palygorskite to me

-----Original Message-----
From: Rockhounds [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of Tim Fisher
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2018 11:16 AM
To: 'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors' <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
Subject: [External] [Rockhounds] Mineral ID

CAUTION: External email. Do not click links or open attachments unless verified. Send all suspicious email as an attachment to Report Spam.<mailto:report.spam at nc.gov>


I'm hoping one of the mineral gurus here can help me with a mystery. I helped sort through part of an old rock collection on Saturday (most of the wrapping newspapers were dated in the 70s) and came across hundreds of specimens that I can't identify (which is most minerals lol). They were from the estate of a rock, mineral, and shell hoarder. A couple really stood out, I have a half decent photo of one of the best of them (I had very little time to sort through and repackage hundreds of pieces). It's fibrous, dull luster, creamy white, and incredibly fragile. Looks like an angel wing. It was packed in a box in cotton balls and I still managed to break off a few of the fibers. Shopping it around I got fibrous sepiolite and Ram's horn selenite as possibilities. Maybe 10% of them were in perky boxes with labels, most were wrapped in paper towels or tissue paper and thrown into the box. Not to mention that I realized to my horror that some people were unwrapping the specimens and throwing away the boxes L We only sorted through 30 of 108 boxes so there's undoubtedly more to come. Our rock club is selling the collection for the family of I'm concerned that we'll end up practically giving them away to people who will generally have no idea what they're looking at. I'm thinking Ebay is a better place to sell the best ones (just guessing there are 20 or so that stand out to me from this first run). This is as close as I can come online, it's identified as fibrous sepiolite.



https://farm8.static.flickr.com/7113/7842703084_595691a69c_b.jpg



Tim Fisher

Orerockon.com



_______________________________________________
Rockhounds mailing list
Subscription Services:  http://rockhounds.drizzle.com/mailman/listinfo/rockhounds_rockhounds.drizzle.com
List Usage Policy: http://Tomaszewski.net/Kreigh/Rockhounds/Rockhounds.shtml