Monthly Mineral Chronicles Volume 1 Issue 4
Issue 4 of the Monthly Mineral Chronicles is now available on Sorrell Publications.
Zeolites in Tasmania
Zeolites of Tasmania, Steve Sorrell, 2003 I need to update this! 15 years ago, my photography skills were not that great, nor was the technology, and there have been many more finds since. Photo: Natrolite, Stanley, Tasmania
A Collector’s Guide to the Minerals of Flinders, Victoria, Australia
Flinders is a well-known collecting locality in southern Victoria, Australia, most notable for its zeolite minerals, particularly gmelinite.This publication explores the minerals that have been found here. You can access here.
Monthly Mineral Chronicles Volume 1 Issue 2 and 3
Issue 2 and Issue 3 of the Monthly Mineral Chronicles are now available on Sorrell Publications.
Monthly Mineral Chronicles…
Issue 1 of the Monthly Mineral Chronicles is now available on Sorrell Publications.
Malbunka Copper Mine, Home of the Azurite Suns
Each year, Dehne and Maureen McLaughlin head up to the Northern Territory from Tasmania, to mine for azurite sun specimens. And each year, Dehne writes about the progress and finds on theses ventures. He sends that information through to me...
Main Lead, Victoria
Main Lead is an area north of Beaufort, Victoria. It was the subject of an early gold rush (Fiery Creek) in the mid 1850s. I was fortunate to be able to visit the area today, with the Ballarat Field Naturalists....
Australia and New Zealand Micromineral News
This is the download page for issues of the Australia and New Zealand Micromineral News, a publication for those interested in micromounting or microminerals, and particularly in minerals from this region. In April 2011, a meeting of people interested in...
Henderson’s Quarry, Ngongotaha, New Zealand
Henderson’s Quarry is a major excavation in volcanic rock on the eastern side of Mount Ngongotaha, near Rotorua on the North Island of New Zealand. Featured image: Henderson’s Quarry, Ngongotaha The quarry is made up of several rock types including pumice,...
Pyramid Hill granite quarry (Mawson’s Quarry), Pyramid Hill, Victoria
A granite quarry in Victoria’s northwest. Featured image: Schorl tourmaline, Pyramid Hill From Mindat – Two quarries, one abandoned, the other operated by E.B. Mawson and Sons, have been excavated on the low granite knolls south of the main Pyramid...
Mooralla, Victoria
Mooralla has long been a famous collecting area, mainly in lapidary circles, and is renowned for its spectacular specimens of smoky quartz. Lesser known is the occurrence of other forms of quartz, including epimorphs, and a small number of other...
Lake Cooper Quarry, Corop, Victoria
Lake Cooper Quarry is situated on the western side of the Corop-Heathcote Road, near to the township of Corop in central Victoria. It is a working quarry producing “road metal” from a metabasite (a subaqueous lava flow), part of the...
Flinders, Victoria
Flinders is a Dana locality southeast of Melbourne, Victoria, best known for producing large crystals of gmelinite. The basalts are part of the Older Volcanics with a flow near the top of the sequence dated at 42 million years. Zeolites...
Duke of Cornwall Mine, Fryerstown, Victoria
The Duke of Cornwall Mine is just outside Fryerstown on the road to Chewton. There are dumps on one side of the road and the ruins of a Cornish Engine House on the other, registered by the National Trust. Featured...
Demon’s Bluff, Anglesea, Victoria
Vivianite nodules up to 20cm across have been found on the beach west of Anglesea on Victoria’s south coast. These are usually water-rounded dark blue nodules that sometimes have crystal-lined cavities. Featured image: Anglesea Beach, looking towards Demon’s Bluff in...
Coimadai Antimony Mine, Victoria
Coimadai (pronounced come-ida) Antimony mine is on Pyrete Creek, a tributary of Goodman’s Creek, about 15 km NNE of Bacchus Marsh. It consists of two lodes, Draper’s and Bondison’s. The deposits were discovered in 1887 and worked intermittently until 1915,...
Castlemaine, Victoria
The Mount Alexander diggings were located in the central goldfields region of Victoria, in and around the present day city of Castlemaine. The site of one of the earliest significant alluvial gold rushes that occurred in Australia during the mid-nineteenth...
Camperdown, Victoria
Camperdown, in Victoria’s Western Districts, is best known for it’s volcanoes and farming. But not for gold. However, the 1900 article below indicates that gold was found in scoria and basalt! Featured image: Zircon, Lake Bullenmerri, Camperdown
Bonney Jean Track, Daisy Hill, Victoria
According to Wikipedia, gold was reported at Daisy Hill in 1849, two years before the official finding of gold (at Clunes and Warrandyte). There is no mention of Daisy Hill in Brough-Smythe’s “The Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria” (1869)....
Alfredton, Ballarat, Victoria
Alfredton is a suburb on the western side of Ballarat. In June 2013, a new housing subdivision was under development on the western side of Learmonth Street. Excavation had unearthed quite a lot of fresh basalt which had been gathered...
Miscellaneous Victorian Deposits
This is where you can find miscellaneous external articles on Victorian localities… Featured image: Ryan Eagle Pegmatite dykes of the Mount Wills district, northeastern Victoria, Australia, Ryan Eagle
Kara Mine, Hampshire, Tasmania
The Minerals of the Kara Mine, Tasmania book (Steve Sorrell and Ralph Bottrill) can be purchased in either paperback or hardback versions from Lulu. Featured image: Andradite, Kara Mine, Tasmania The Kara mineral field is a group of mineralised skarn deposits,...
Barite in Tasmania
Introduction Barite (barium sulphate) is a fairly common heavy mineral that often occurs in Pb-Zn ore deposits as a gangue mineral, in sedimentary deposits, and rarely in basalts. When found in sufficient quantity, it is mined for it’s barium content....
Avebury Nickel Mine, Zeehan, Tasmania
Featured image: Calcite, Avebury Mine The full text and photos of the minerals from Avebury can be found in Issue 2 of the Australian and New Zealand Mineral Collector magazine. The Avebury area is located approximately 8 km west of Zeehan...
Adelaide Mine, Dundas, Tasmania
The Adelaide Mine, Dundas, Tasmania, is famous for its world’s best crocoite. Adam Wright and his partners have been operating it for mineral specimen removal for a number of years and have had significant finds in recent years. In particular,...
Miscellaneous South Australian Deposits
Here are a few external articles on South Australian deposits… Featured image: Old wagon on the edge of the track between Plumbago and Billeroo. Trevor Dart photo. The Billeroo Davidite Deposit, Trevor Dart The Puttapa Zinc Mine, Mark Cole Xenotime Occurrences...
The Mt. Biggenden Gold and Bismuth Mine, Queensland
By Eric L Stevens and Steve Sorrell (photos by Steve Sorrell unless otherwise noted) Updated and revised from an article originally published in the Australian and New Zealand Mineral Collector Magazine issue 6, 2008. Featured image: Calcite, Biggenden, Queensland. 4mm FoV....
F-6 cutting at Mt Brown near Dapto, New South Wales
By Eric von Werstak Feature image: F-6 Freeway at Mount Brown looking north where the vughs appeared. Introduction Mount Brown is situated near Dapto in the Illawarra District of the South Coast of New South Wales. It comprises of sandstones of volcanic...
The Elura Orebody, New South Wales
The Elura mine (now known as the Endeavour Mine) near Cobar, New South Wales, was well-known in particular for its native silver and mimetite specimens. This 278 page thesis by Gernot Loidl, is a comprehensive work, looking the regional geology, the characteristics...
Broken Hill Region, New South Wales
Broken Hill based Trevor Dart has written a few articles on localities in his region. These include the following ones on Mindat: Rutile in the Broken Hill District, Trevor Dart The Huonville Sphene Pit, Trevor Dart The Often Overlooked Broken...
Some Relatively Uncommon Localities in New South Wales
The late Margaret and Keith Brown of Echuca had many trips through New South Wales and Queensland, collecting minerals themselves, or swapping/purchasing with other mineral collectors. This post highlights specimens from their collection from lesser known localities in New South...