Friday, July 10, 2020

RED GILLESPITE: MORE BARIUM SILICATES PLUS AN IDIOM OR TWO


The other day I posted a ms. on some rare barium silicates, sanbornite and macdonaldite, collected from the Big Creek/Rush Creek sites in California (25 June 2020).  With time on my hands I continue examining odds and ends in my collection.  It turns out that I actually had another barium silicate from Big Creek/Rush Creek area in my collection that I missed the first time, a barium iron silicate, gillespite [BaFeSi4O10].  

Idioms for everyone!

·       With time on my hands [the origin of the idiom 'time on your hands' isn’t known; what scholars do know, though, is that this saying is an old one. The earliest printed example available is from Charles Lamb’s 1833 Last Essay of Elia: “It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever manage.” credit to: Gingersoftware.com.
·       odds and ends in my collection [Odds and ends is a plural noun idiom that has existed in English since the mid-1700’s with origins are far back the 14th century. credit to: idioms.online.
·       It turns out [The first use of the phrase can be traced back to the 1500s. Initially, it was used to describe evicting someone for failing to pay rent. Credit to the idioms.com.
·       On the other hand [The first use of the phrase can be traced to 1630. It is a figurative use of the literal action of holding out two hands and offering people two options. If you pick the one option, it will differ from the one on the other hand. Credit to: theidioms.com  

Gillespite is much more colorful than many other barium silicates due to the presence of iron; specimens are red.  Crystals are usually “tiny” scattered grains but mostly crystalline masses. The individual grains are usually embedded in the matrix, mostly sanbornite.  It is difficult to distinguish but crystals usually are transparent to translucent, brittle, have a vitreous luster, and a hardness of ~4 (Mohs).  The best way to identify gillespite is to know the collecting locality!





Photomicrographs of aggregates of gillespite grains in a sanbornite matrix.  Note iridescence in much of the sanbornite.  Width FOV ~8 mm in all.

And my mind wanders—from idioms to 50 years ago.  July of 1970 sticks out in my mind, big time.  In early July I was trying to desperately finish up a few blank spots in my field work for the dissertation at the University of Utah.  I was checking last minute locations, mostly in the Evanston, Wyoming, area.  I had finished the screening at my Eocene mammal quarry in summer 1969 and had spent the academic year in four major pursuits: 1) studying for, and passing, my “written exams”  in spring 1970; and 2) using a binocular scope to “pick out” the small fossils in the screened residue; 3) starting to identify the critters; and 4) applying for an academic position (I was successful)—I needed a job as I prepared for fatherhood.   Wow, talk about stress—makes my personal quarantine stress today seem trivial (although not the stress experienced by Covid-19 patients).  On the other hand, it was an exciting time in my life, and we left Salt Lake City on July 24 heading toward Kansas listening to Mungo Jerry (see below) and a new life.  Actually, life was pretty darn good.