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[auscarver]

Today I found the best piece I have seen in my rhodonite deposit, I found this deposit close to 2 years back, good bright pink with some very unusual mixed in colors, green, I have only seen green once before and no where as bright as this. I enjoy rock hounding easily as much as carving.

[Slabbercabber]

Truly outstanding.

[Redrummd]

That sure looks like a Thulite blend I have.   The green could be caused by a serpentine mix.  Here are photos of a piece I had analyzed and a XRD done on......

[lithicbeads]

Outstanding is correct. Augite perhaps?

[Redrummd]

Here is the report on the mix from the University of Washington:

University of Washington Geology Dept.
From: vshowell@comcast.net [mailto:vshowell@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 12:19 AM
To: Michael Hoover
Subject: Re: Pink stone at 7+ MOHS from Okanogan county

No, you sent plenty of sample,
and i will do more testing.
This was excellent because I forgot that you might have already mentioned Zoisite prior.

I looked at that xrd pattern.... and just thought...oh shit...this might be a tough one,
because it has so many small peaks...it might be a big mix...
I am not done, it might have a small contaminant,
but the overall evidence pointed straight to zoisite as the directly definable mineral,
and the pattern appeared to be overall clean.
The main predominant Zoisite peak was right on the number exact for all practical purposes.

I think that we have it on the first try.
But be reserved in content here because this is the first test.
I will test more next week.

thanks!
Vic


From: vshowell@comcast.net [mailto:vshowell@comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 10:48 AM
To: Michael Hoover
Subject: Re: Pink stone at 7+ MOHS from Okanogan county

Hi Mike,
I tested 2 blacks sections.
One was a thin area around the thin slab.
The other was off the thick slab.

Thick slab:
very odd tremolite pattern mixed in with a plagioclase- most likely albite,
some serp and chlorite, maybe a pinch of zoisite.

thin section:
the same but a much better tremolite pattern, less plagioclase,
and a little more zoisite.

I will do some more testing on the pink stuff soon, and let you know soon.

Also imaged the zoisite in electron microscope.

When all is done I will email you again in the next week.

I have been super busy,
thanks so much for the sample.

Vic

[Jhon P]

Wow! Can't wait to see what you do with it

[auscarver]

Thanks for the great response, my deposit is on a fault zone, the peel fault not far from the nephrite deposits, its very hard, close to 7, it does contain spasitine garnet, tephrite, jasper, its a very fine grain rhodonite, not crystaline like some in my region.

[edgarscale]

what  beautiful stone.

[Jhon P]

Did you you buy that property just because of the rock! It must be nice to collect on your own property.
In the USA we can have restrictions on public land with the different government agencies. Some places are limited collecting and limited on digging ect.

[auscarver]

I purchased my property early 2005, I had no interest in rocks and gems at that time, I was helping my father in 2006 to fix a fence and found azurite and malachite mixed in white quartz, from then I was bitten by the rock hounding bug, my region has heaps of rhodonite deposits, I have a friend that owns a rhodonite mine and I learn,t heaps from him about locating it, he is a sphere maker, uses most from his mine for his spheres. I cabbed it, lost most of the green but still looks good.