[Rockhounds] Question on Boracite

[Andrew Turner]

The 2019 show and trips were canceled due to the earthquake.  Last year was canceled due to Covid.  Not sure about this year (October), but it is CA so they probably canceled.  However, prior to this they had 3 large field trips on their show weekend.  You could get as much hanksite and halite as you could ever want.  I would actually high grade and dump back about 5 gallons of poorer material from the year before back to the pile.  The employees there also get some stuff out during the year.  Some years you get larger crystals, some with other minerals (sulfohalite, thenardite, etc.), clusters, etc.  It seems to vary every year.  However, halite from there is neither rare nor unusual, and it is incredibly plentiful when they have their trips.

Andrew Turner

________________________________
From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> on behalf of Doug Bank <dougbank at alum.mit.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 7:00 PM
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Question on Boracite

IS anything coming out of Searles Lake? I thought there was an earthquake out there a couple of years ago that closed everything up. (Then COVID really closed everything up.)

I looked at a few related sites, and I see a lot of CANCELLED notices with regard to 2021 activities.

Doug

> On Jul 6, 2021, at 7:05 PM, Andrew Turner <turnea55 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Doug,
>
> Looks like many of us came to the same conclusions.  Alfredo is, by far, the best authority on all things Bolivian.  Great guy as well.
>
> Without going too much into the weeds, I absolutely agree that you should always be skeptical of certain mineral dealers and their descriptions.  I had a run in with Lavinsky when a description wasn't even in the correct country and a halite from Searles Lake where he claimed that it was the only material left and nothing else is coming out (although there is a field trip there every year to collect them).  There are some great mineral people that have great knowledge, unfortunately some of the larger commercial dealers sometimes know very little.
>
> Andrew Turner
> Salt Lake City, UT

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