JAY GATSBY
Snazzy speakeasies
Money, jazz, dancing, flappers
Hedonistic Jay
My
quest to become a life-long learner has led me in many different directions
from trying to relearn some basic chemistry to reviewing some of my high
school/college lit class assignments (yes I remember). The other day I was
thumbing through the Cliff Notes copy of The Great Gatsby by
F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of St. Paul, Minnesota’s favorite sons. I
really didn’t like the novel when I was 18 or 20, and it seems my “likes” have
not changed in half a century. What I did remember was a quote that stuck in my
mind and reappeared every decade or so: Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when
he is alive and not after he is dead. Today I have sort of paraphrased
and rewritten that sentence to: Let us learn to honor our friends when they are
alive and not after they are dead! I am certain some of my Blog
readers are now thinking that Mike is at it again, way off his
rocker. I am thinking that the editor of this Blog is an ole softee
and will put his red pencil away (that red pencil phrase dates me) and allow me
to zig-zag round. So, I will; please stick around!
I
was able to acquire a specimen of whitmoreite collected from the Big Chief and
mounted by Art Smith in 1979 after he purchased it from Black Hills
Minerals. Loomis noted that the crystals
from the Big Chief are amber to greenish brown in color with chisel-shaped
terminations. At times the crystals are found as isolated individuals or
scattered groups, but the most recognizable crystals resemble “floating naval
mines,” a term he picked up from Moore (Moore and others, 1974). Like many secondary phosphate minerals the minute crystals are measured in millimeters or less.
A "floating naval mine" of minute whitmoreite crystals. Width of crystal mass is less than 1 mm, probably about .5 mm, and is the best my camera could produce. The darker "out-of-focus" crystals are probably rockbridgeite.
Whitmoreite
is a member of the Arthurite Group (monoclinic arsenate and phosphates), named for arthurite, a hydrous copper/iron arsenate: CuFe+++(AsO4,)2(OH)2-4H2O--the
copper/iron cations combine with the arsenate radical and water. In other members of the Group the copper
cation is replaced by cobalt, iron++, zinc, or manganese. Notice that in whitmoreite
the copper is replaced by the divalent cation ferrous iron (Fe++). In addition,
the phosphate radical (PO4) may replace the arsenate radical in some minerals (as in whitmoreite). So,
there are a variety of minerals, or possible arthurite-like minerals, forming with
changes/substitutions in the cations and/or the radicals!
Arthurite
is emerald to dark apple green in color with a hardness of ~4
(Mohs). Crystals are acicular to prismatic and quite
vitreous. Like the other arsenates, arthurite is found in the
secondary oxidized zone and is derived from arsenopyrite or enargite (Cu3AsS4).
Crystals of arthurite from Majuba Hill, Nevada. Some crystal sprays are very dark green in color and quite vitreous and my camera refuses to pick up the individuals Width FOV ~ 7 mm.
REFERENCES CITED
Moore,
P.B., Kampf, A.R. and Irving, A.J.,1974, Whitmoreite, Fe2+Fe3+2(OH)2(H2O)4[PO4]2,
a new species: Its description and atomic arrangement. American Mineralogist:
59.
Yang,
H., Gu, X., Gibbs, R. B., and Scott, M. M., 2022, Loomisite, IMA 2022-003, in:
CNMNC Newsletter 67. European Journal of Mineralogy: 34.
Wow. I am thrilled to have such a good friend and geologist include me in his blog. It's an honor Mike! Thank you, Tom Loomis
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