Locality: Tripp Mine, Alstead, NH
Specimen Size: 13 cm specimen of color-zoned muscovite cleavage.
Field Collected: Wayne Corwin
Catalog No.:
Notes: A gift from Wayne Corwin at the June 2011 Gilsum Rock Swap.
Locality: Ham-Weeks Mine, Wakefield, NH
Specimen Size: 2 mm cubo-octahedral uraninite crystal with yellow uranophane.
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer - Aug 2011
Catalog No.:
Notes: The specimen is highly radioactive, collected from pegmatite ledge. A. Smith & G. Bearss do not report uraninite in their species list included with their article "The Weeks Pegmatite Mine," Rocks & Minerals vol. 66, No 2, Mar/Apr 1991. However, A. Smith, Mineral News vol 18, no. 4, Apr. 2002, pg 2, reports an Excaliber Minerals analysis of a Ham-Weeks specimen of "thorian-rich uraninite."
Locality: Ham-Weeks Mine, Wakefield, NH
Specimen Size: 2 mm cubo-octahedral uraninite crystals with yellow uranophane.
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer - Aug 2011
Catalog No.:
Notes: Specimen highly radioactive, collected from pegmatite ledge.
Locality: North Sugarloaf Mtn. Bethlehem, NH
Specimen Size: 18 cm specimen with several beryl crystals in milky gray quartz and 1 cm zone of wine red danalite near top-right
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer
Catalog No.:
Notes: As noted by the Whittmore & Janules article "North Sugarloaf Mountain" in Rocks & Minerals vol. 65, No. 4, July - Aug, 1990, "Pale green, crude prismatic beryl crystals to 20 cm were found at the smoky quartz site, embedded in the quartz and feldspar,... closely associated with danalite."
As they are somewhat crudely formed, few of these beryls were saved by collectors. This is a representative example of the occurrence.
Locality: North Sugarloaf Mtn. Bethlehem, NH
Specimen Size: 8 cm specimen
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer
Catalog No.:
Notes: Another example of the beryl occurrence at N. Sugarloaf Mtn.
Locality: King Rd. residential construction, Bedford, NH
Specimen Size: 18 cm specimen of orange-brown chalcedony over milky quartz with frosty hyalite opal coating. The hyalite is only weakly fluorescent.
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer
Catalog No.:
Notes: Chalcedony quartz of this mammillary habit is rare in New Hampshire.
Locality: Pulpit Rd. re-build, Bedford, NH
Specimen Size: 1.3 cm crystal, two views
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer - June 2011
Catalog No.: 1780
Notes: These olivine group crystals were initially discovered by Peter Cristofono in the weathered zone of a basalt dike exposed by 2011 blasting for the Pulpit Road widening project. The best formed crystals were found in the most weathered, frayable, dike material.
The interior of these weathered crystals is a glassy pale yellow-green. A sample of this un-altered mineral was submitted to EDS analysis by Peter Cristofono. The result indicated the species is the olivine group mineral fayalite, not to far from the fayalite-forsterite series midpoint. See Joppa Hill olivine analysis.
Locality: Pulpit Rd. re-build, Bedford, NH
Specimen Size: Looking down "c" axis of crystal above (to show symetry)
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer - June 2011
Catalog No.: 1780
Notes: Vertical dimension in view is 6 mm.
Locality: Pulpit Rd. re-build, Bedford, NH
Specimen Size: 1.5 cm specimen, fayalite crystal with weathered surface in basalt.
Field Collected: Tom Mortimer - June 2011
Catalog No.: 1779
Notes:
Locality: Attributed to French Mine, Alstead, NH
Specimen Size: 13 cm specimen. Specimen interior almost all graftonite, (as visible on bottom sawn surface). Laminar, brown-pink graftonite is exposed on right side of specimen
Field Collected: Francis Maloney, Gilsum, NH. Gift from Dale Johnson.
Catalog No.:
Notes: Francis Maloney (d. 2002) was the founder of the Gilsum Rock Swap and former postmaster of Gilsum. Francis owned several mines in the Gilsum-Alstead area. In August, 2011, I (Tom Mortimer) was invited to Gilsum to assist the Gilsum Historical Society in the idendification of specimens from the Maloney collection donated by his widow. Unfortunately, none of the specimens were labeled with either species or locality, although certainly most had come from the mines of the Gilsum-Alstead area.
This specimen locality attribution was made by 1) similarity to Harvard Museum specimen #130841 -- see mindat.org photo, and 2) that Francis Maloney extensively collected in the Gilsum-Alstead area.
Worldwide, graftonite is an uncommon mineral. Melvin Hill, Springfield, New Hampshire is the type locality for graftonite.