Bleikvatnet

DESCRIPTION

Bleikvatnet lies about 30 km south of Mo i Rana, south of Okstindarna, north of Kongsfjellet. It is used as a water magazine. You reach it by driving up to Bleikvassli gruver (mines).

GEOLOGY

Read more about the geology of the area and the mine in the page of Bleikvassli Gruber.

VISITS

2000-07-19 My first visit was together with Odd Finanger and Asmund Rana. We brought a small boat and camping gear so that we could do the exploration thoroughly.
We started the day by setting course on one of the islands in the lake. we put our gear out and raised the tent. After a quick luch we started our exploration. We drove slowly around the shore of the lake. A number of empty quartz veins and some bad garnet schists later we reached the end of the lake. There we went ashore and examined an outcrop.
We found some tremolite and apatite and started to check our maps. The area where the corund have been found lay right across the lake from where we were. We decided to go there and took sight on a mountain peak.
Finally we felt that we were in the right area and we started to scan the hillside. We found a serpentinite and in it there were magnetite, schörl, magnesite, tremolite but no corundum. After a while we found some veins of zoisite that we started to work on.
We had heard that zoisite was often found together with corundum. Some dark red garnets fooled us for a while but eventually we had to give up.
The trip back to the island was mostly uninteresting. Some almandine and schörl was the only thing we found.
A well deserved dinner and a walk along the shore was all we had time to do until the rain started. So the only thing to do was to go to bed. When I waked up in the morning I felt my feets were wet, the rain had managed to get inside of the tent! I managed to go to sleep again and the next time I woke up the rain had stopped.
After breakfast and collecting our equipment we loaded the boat. The lake had rised by 20 cm during the night!
We followed the shore on the other side of the lake on our way home. The only thing we found was some bad almandine and kyanite.
When we got back to where we had left the cars we took a last look at a cliff just a couple of hundred meters away. There we found a limestone rock with nice layers of tremolite.
A very nice trip all in all, we didn't find what we tried to find, but we found some nice rocks anyhow.

LITTERATURE

   Henrich Neumann
     Norges Mineraler, NGU skrifter 68, pg 62

Mineral assemblage

Zoisite, Quartz, Tremolite, Calcite, Almandine, Kyanite, Actinolite, Talc, Serpentine, Schörl, Magnetite, Magnesite.

Zoisite
Light brown zoisite from north of the Kongsfjell area.
There are some finegrained dark rock left from the surrounding rock.
We were looking for the corundum in this are, but we didn't find any. What we found was zoisite in veins in a dark amfibolite. Close by lies a serpentinite with a thickness of a couple of meters up to 20 meters. We also found some red garnets in the zoisite veins.
Collected in 2000
(Size 6x4x2.5 cm)

Almandine
A couple of almandine crystals in quartz together with muscovite and some biotite.
There is a ridge in a bay at the south western part of the lake. It consists of garnet schist with lots of red almandine garnets, mostly badly formed and opaque. In the schist there are a number of quartz veins with kyanite.
This specimen comes from one of the quartz veins and shows some of the best garners I found.
Collected in 2000.
(Size 10x5x3 cm, crystals about 5 mm)

Kyanite
Pale qyanite in quartz.
This was collected close to the above garnets. Most qyanite is almost impossible to remove since it is embedded in the massive quartz veins.
Collected in 2000.
(Size 3.5x2.5x1 cm)

Quartz
About five small quartz crystals sits in the center of this sample.
It comes from a quartz vein of the southern shore of the lake.
Collected in 2000.
(Size 6x3.5x2 cm)

If you have some questions, suggestions or comments you are welcome to write me a line or two.

Locality index. Norwegian locality index. Main index.

axelsson@acc.umu.se

	Zoisite Light brown zoisite from north of the Kongsfjell area. There are some finegrained dark rock left from the surrounding rock. We were looking for the corundum in this are, but we didn't find any. What we found was zoisite in veins in a dark amfibolite. Close by lies a serpentinite with a thickness of a couple of meters up to 20 meters. We also found some red garnets in the zoisite veins. Collected in 2000 (Size 6x4x2.5 cm)
	Almandine A couple of almandine crystals in quartz together with muscovite and some biotite. There is a ridge in a bay at the south western part of the lake. It consists of garnet schist with lots of red almandine garnets, mostly badly formed and opaque. In the schist there are a number of quartz veins with kyanite. This specimen comes from one of the quartz veins and shows some of the best garners I found. Collected in 2000. (Size 10x5x3 cm, crystals about 5 mm)
	Kyanite Pale qyanite in quartz. This was collected close to the above garnets. Most qyanite is almost impossible to remove since it is embedded in the massive quartz veins. Collected in 2000. (Size 3.5x2.5x1 cm)
	Quartz About five small quartz crystals sits in the center of this sample. It comes from a quartz vein of the southern shore of the lake. Collected in 2000. (Size 6x3.5x2 cm)