The Västerås area

Långsjön Långsjön is located about 15 km N of Västerås, the road to Surahammar runs right over it. It is a popular bath lake in the summers. On the north side of the lake it's possible to find amethyst in quartz filled fractures in granite. All you have to do is to find a fracture in the rock ( digging down to it ) and then crack the stones (solid rock sometimes) and removing the pieces, checking for amethyst crystals. Of course, this place have been known to rockhounds for at least twenty years, so the most easily accessed crystals is already removed :-). People have followed a fracture through solid rock to a depth of two meters! If you are planning to recover some prime quality specimens, prepare to do some heavy work for at least one or two days.
	Fluorite This is the first time I have seen fluorite as small balls, 1 to 5 mm in diameter, but I'm quite new in geology. If you look at it with a microscope you can see that each ball is made up of thousands of small cubes. The cubes are all slightly violet colored at the edges. Collected 1998-04-12 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Fluorite This is fluorite that have filled up a crack totally. Seen from the side. In cavities in the fluorite it's possible to find nice amethyst crystals. Collected 1998-04-12 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Fluorite Dark blue fluorite in some cracks in the granite. This stuff is different compared with the other fluorite I've found at this locality. A rather coarse crystalline, with no quartz crystals. Some small cavities are filled with a white mineral, I suppose it's some sort of clay mineral. Collected 1998-04-12 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Quartz This rock consist of a base of massive fluorite. The surface is all covered by rock crystals with a weak hue of violet The size of the crystals are about two mm long. Collected 1998-04-12 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Quartz (amethyst) This rock is covered on one side with violet amethyst crystals. The color isn't as strong as some crystals from this locality, but close enough for me to call it amethyst. This is one half of a bigger piece that broke when I removed it from the rock, I gave the other part to my girlfriend. Collected 1998-04-13 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Asphaltite I found asphaltite in a few holes in a quartz vein, east of the road. In this specimen it forms two black balls together with fluorite balls in a hole. Collected 1998-04-12 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
Algruvan, molybdenium mine. Algruvan is located about 15 km N of Västerås, to the west of the road to Surahammar, shortly before Långsjön.
	Molybdenite Molybdenite in a matrix of fine grained sand stone ???. I Collected 1998-04-14 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
Pegmatite vein nort of Vallby. There is a road project in Västerås, called Norrleden. One of the things done in this project is to straighten out the road from Vallby to the Skinskatteberg road. In the way of the new road was a ridge of rock that is being removed. When I passed it on 13/4-98 the blasting team had finished half of the rock, about 150m. The other half was drilled but not blasted yet. As a true rockhound I couldn't pass it without stopping. One of the first things I noticed was that the boulders had traces of pegmatitic material in it, but only feldspar and quartz. I found one calcite filled hole with some rock crystals at about 1cm. But since they were all damaged I didn't keep it. It was when I reached the middle of the stone heap I found some traces of a green mineral in the pegmatite material, and later I found some samples big enough to take home. I also found hornblende and a biotite filled hole with some garnets (1-5mm) in it. The pegmatite vein is easy to follow on the bare rock where they haven't blasted yet. It's about 15-60 cm wide, running straight in the center of the road Dipping to the north in an approximate angle of 35 degrees from horisontal. If the road is deep enough in the rock, it should be able to study the pegmatite after the road is completed, else it will be buried beneath the new road.
	Pyrophyllite Pyrophyllite, found in a pegmatite vein in Västerås. The locality may soon be over, since it was in a small hill, going right where the new road will be drawn. When I visited the rockpile, they had blasted about half of the hill and the rest was already drilled for the next blow. The pegmatite was a vein about 20-60 cm wide with mostly coarse feldspar and quartz. Other minerals I found there includes "biotite, hornblende, rock crystal, muscovite, garnet. Collected 1998-04-12 (300 dpi, 800x600, k) Note : I'm not so shure that it is pyrophyllite any longer. As soon as I know, I will report it here!
	Hornblende This seems to be hornblende. I found some cleavable crystals in the pegmatite. It comes with quartz, pyrite and some light green feldspar. Collected 1998-04-12 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
Ängsö I have visited Ängsö a number of times, but never collected any minerals on those occasions. Ängsö is a nature reservate and collecting is not allowed. The garnets from Ängsö was collected during a road construction in the area.
	Almandine Dark lilac-red almandine in quartz. Bought it in 1999. (300 dpi, 800x600, k)

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