Rock hunting in Berslagen -98
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This is the description of the 1998 rock hunting trip in bergslagen. It was an arrangement with the Västerbottens Amatör Geologiska förening and we were guided by a very experienced guide, Ingemar Johansson from Kopparberg. We were a small party of five rock hounds that were running around in the woods of Bergslagen, digging and smashing rocks, and we all agreed that Ingemar made this week a memorable event. Since it's still in the summer, and the rock season isn't over yet, I will leave this page in a sort of unfinished state.
During the week we visited the following mines and places : |
Bastnäs
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This was the first visit on the Bergslagen trip. We started with a visit
at the erythrine locality. When everybody was satisfied we continued to
the molybdite locality and everybody got some samples to bring back to
their collections. After that we all started to search for the more rare minerals in the big dump pile outside the cerite mine. What most of us searched for was the cerite and allanite ore, but many more rare and beautiful minerals were collected. We found rock crystals, cerite, allanite, malachite, wroewolfeite, carrollite, bastnasite, rhodonite and spessartine. The only mineral we searched for but didn't find was tornebohmite. When we all was ready to continue to the next place, something very annoying happened. One of us locked his keys in his car! Well, everything went well in the end, but it took us an hour to solve the problem. |
Godkärra pegmatite
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After the small incident with the car keys, we continued to the nearby
pegmatite in Godkärra. There we searched and found andalusite, euxenite
and xenotime. Strange, some didn't want a part from the xenotime when they heard about it's radioactivity.... The day had been so fantastic, that nobody cared about the rain that came and went during the whole day. Well, we were all rockhounds. |
Östanmossa (norberg)
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We didn't saw so much of the mine itself because the heavy vegetation.
We were led by Ingemar to a dump pile and shown what to look for.
Soon everybody had samples of norbergite and dollaseite.
The Östanmossa mine is the type locality for those minerals.
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Tallgruvan (Norberg)
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Tallgruvan was one of the smalles mines I ever seen. It wasn't much
bigger than a prospecting ditch. Althou there were some small mine
dumps around it and we found some traces from the borates that it's
famous for.
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Stripåsen copper mine (Norberg)
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Stripåsen copper mine.
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Hästfältet (Norberg)
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Hästfältet.
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Snösjön
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Snösjön.
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Långban
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Långban. Here the rain poured down, so I can't say that I enjoyed it too much.
I managed to find a mm sized natrolite crystal and some other minerals. The
other in our group wasn't much more lucky than I. After two hours we gave up and
went th the inn. This was the best in Långban, with good food in a nice
environment, but most of all, it was dry. This was the last visit for Doris and Siv, they should go to their cabin 10 km north of Långban. We followed them up to their cabin for a cup of coffee and then we turned back to Kopparberg. |
Västra Silvberg
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On saturday we decided that we should keep company up to Västra Silvberg and
make three quick mineral stop. In south of Västra Silvberg to collect some
silbergite and a nice garnet dotted rock for cutting. In the north of Västra Silvberg, we made a stop in Stollberget with it's nice arsenopyrite crystals. |
Schisshyttan
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Schisshyttan lies about 5 km north of Västra Silvberg. The bedrock is
metamorphosed and have created nice gedrite suns in the light colored
ground material. As a worthy finale of the trip I chopped my way down through a boulder with a sledgehammer. After fifteen minutes I was rewarded with a very good specimen. This was also the last visit on the officially sponsored trip of Västerbottens Amatörgeologer, and we took goodbye of Einar and Ketty. |
Jättendal
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Well, you arn't a rock hound if you couldn't make just another stop on the road,
even if the car broke down and we had to move our gears (including a lot of
stones) to a rental car. Well we were just a couple of hours late, who counts
anyhow? After a walk through very rough terrain, terrorised by moscitos, we finally found a stone that we think contains cordierite. We took some samples and then we headed back home. As usual the first visit in a locality isn't at all as you expect it to be. Well, I think I will be back some day. |
Bought minerals
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I fell for the temptation when Ingemar showed his minerals that he was to bring
to a mineral fair the next weekend, so I bought some minerals from him. It was
like the fisher that bought fish in a store, but they have to toss it to him so
he could say that he had catched them. I found these minerals, but I don't
have to tell people that I found them already labelled in a box. :-) This is a list of the minerals I bought during the journey.
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