#williamsite

[themarshallbranmuffin]

Williamsite!! The Fusion of Hope Diamond and Tiger's Eye!!

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

Everything Pennsylvania

On May 10th a new temporary exhibit is scheduled to be installed in Wertz Gallery Gems and Jewelry that will feature gemstones, cabochons, polished spheres and carvings made from minerals unearthed in our own state of Pennsylvania. While we may be known as a coal producing state, there are lapidary and faceting grade minerals that are found in Pennsylvania as well. And, believe it or not, one of the polished pieces in the exhibit is a type of coal known as JET.

A carved egg made from JET, a type of LIGNITE which is a precursor to COAL.

The English noun "Jet" derives from the French word for the same material: jaiet (modern French "jais"). The adjective "jet-black", meaning as dark a black as possible, derives from this material.

Another unusual piece in the exhibit is a carving of an elephant made from a translucent variety of ANTIGORITE known as WILLIAMSITE which is found in the State Line Chromite District in Lancaster County.

Elephant carved from WILLIAMSITE found at Lowe’s Chromite Mine in Fulton Township.

WILLIAMSITE was named in 1848 in honor of its discoverer, Lewis White Williams, a mineralogist and geologist of West Chester, Pennsylvania.

I don’t want to give away too much because I want you to come the museum to see the exhibit in person, but I will reveal two other pieces. They were personally collected at the Bingham Mine in Hamiltonban Township, Adams County, by the 1988 Carnegie Mineralogical Award winner, John Sinkankas, who also cut and polished them. The colors in these cabochons are due to the epidote and cuprite in the META-RHYOLITE, which is a silicified, or metamorphosed, RHYOLITE (an extrusive igneous rock).

META-RHYOLITE cabochons purchased from John Sinkankas in 1990.

Besides those pieces mentioned here, you will also see faceted gemstones of QUARTZ, AMETHYST, SMOKY QUARTZ, AQUAMARINE, and TITANITE; cabochons of MALACHITE, BLUE QUARTZ, SUNSTONE, and AMAZONITE; and polished spheres of COPPER & QUARTZ, and BLUE QUARTZ. The Cut and Polished Pennsylvania Gems and Minerals will be on exhibit in Wertz Gallery at least through the end of summer. Don’t miss it!

Debra Wilson is the Collection Manager for the Section of Minerals at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

[detournementsmineurs]

"Girdle" by May Morris in in silver, williamsite, garnets and river pearls, (circa 1906) and "Heart "pendant by May Morris in of silver, amazonite, williamsite, lapis lazuli and seed pearls (1903) presented in “A History of Jewellery: Bedazzled (part 6: Jewellery of the Arts and Crafts Movement 1890-1914)” by Clare Phillips - Curator at the V&A Museum - for the V&A Academy online, march 2024.

[pink-froggie]

can you do topaz/lapis fusion and jasper/blue diamond fusion?

Williamsite (Topaz/Lapis) and Lime Green Andesine (Blue Diamond/Jasper)

[4thdimensiongems]

Williamsite Antigorite (Gem Chrome Serpentine) Cabochon 56 ct

[ifuckingloveminerals]

Antigorite var. Williamsite

Lowe's Chrome Pits, Cecil County, Maryland

[mineral-metal-blog]

John White and a Rock Pile

Actually we  were trespassing as we peered through a pile of rocks dumped just a few feet off a lonely country road in York County, Pennsylvania near Delta. John White and I  had  tried unsuccessfully to locate the landowner. In the process, we learned that the a local power company had dumped the rocks there in conjunction with a project that never happened. Hopefully, the landowner wouldn't mind. John had expressed interest in these rocks over the past year and had encouraged me to check them out. He had described the material as "just serpentine rock."  For reasons that hindsight now renders lame,  I had not yet done so. What was wrong with me? When a past Curator-in-Charge of the national mineral collection who also founded Mineralogical Record gets excited about a site less than an hour's drive away, it's worth a look.

Then last week, John emailed me an invite to see some of the rocks he'd purchased at the recent Denver show. Attached was the image shown at left. It pictures cabs from material John had found when he first discovered the aforementioned rock pile last year.  His email suggested that after looking at his Denver acquisitions, we drive there. We did and ended up crawling over the pile of serpentinite rocks. There were numerous pieces worthy of John's cabs. Antigorite was abundant, especially  the columnar picrolite variety. Colors ranged from  very light green to very dark green. Gemmy coatings of medium to dark green  antigorite occasionally comprised the rocks' surfaces. This antigorite was slightly translucent, but less so than antigorite (var.) williamsite.  It also lacked those chromite spots so definitive of williamsite. The  rock beneath the antigorite was grainy, dull greenish gray and black, possibly chrome-bearing, and iron-bearing almost for sure. Though we didn't have magnets, John had learned  when the cabs from his earlier find were made  that much of the black material here was magnetic. One specimen that particularly interested me is the quartz (var.) prase shown at right. Is presence along with the serpentinite strongly suggests that the rocks on this pile were from the neighboring Cedar Hill or Penn-Maryland Quarries just a few miles east in Lancaster Couty at Fulton Township. Both quarries exploit the same kind of serpentinite rock that's part of the Baltimore Mafic Complex.  Another piece that impressed me features an intersection of massive magnetite with pale green antigorite (var.) picrolite. Were it chromite rather than magnetite meeting that picrolite, I suspect some williamsite would be gracing the picture as well. Assuming that the rocks originated at either the Cedar Hill or Penn- Maryland Quarries, such a find would seem reasonable. Chromite as well as magnetite is known to occur at both localities All told, we spent less than an hour at the rock pile. We departed because we were hungry and still marginally clean enough to be served a hearty lunch at a family restaurant a few miles away.  Thereafter, we continued about ten miles further on  to check out ---with permission---the edges of another rock pile that John knew about. It consisted mostly of  "Wissahickon schist."  We quickly uncovered some graphite, pyrite, and siderite.  This was a much bigger pile of rocks. Unfortunately,  later commitments limited the amount of time we had to see as much of it as we would have liked. Stay tuned.

[themineralogist]

Williamsite from Pennysylvania