Rockhound – A Series on Rock and Mineral Collecting in Ontario

Above: A shard of peristerite from Crystal Lake Ontario. A gem quality feldspar that is found in abundance in the tailings.

In the three volume series, ‘Rockhound’, you’ll explore what it means to collect minerals in the skarns and pegmatites of the north. We’ll travel to forgotten settlements and ghost towns and you’ll visit the famous mining camps of Cobalt, Eldorado and Gowganda. Directions within the ‘Rockhound Series’  will take you to little known deposits that yield some amazing specimens. When you apply what you’ve learned you’ll find crystals and minerals in a diversity of species that will astound you. In the first volume of this series you’ll be shown where to find coltan, amazonite, tourmaline, gold, zircon, silver, beryl, fluorite, titanite and more.

Click here to visit the Rockhoundbook.com website from whence a copy of Rockhound can be purchased.

Whether you’re a serious collector or a casual enthusiast, ‘Rockhound’ will take you where you need to go and show you what you never believed possible in the mines and forests of the north.

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A Book on Collecting Rocks and Minerals in Ontario

Yes, that is indeed yours truly on the front cover. This is my latest book which is on rock and mineral collecting. As you can see its called ‘Rockhound: an Experience of the North’. This is actually the first of several books in the Rockhound series and it consists of several chapters detailing how to find minerals, identify minerals and the human experience related to that. This first book covers finding gold, feldspar, radioactives, sodalite, apatite, titinite and silver.

As it says on the back cover “In this first volume of rockhound we will explore the mineral world in the context of the whole experience – the deposits, the landscape and the people. whether you are a hard-core collector or a casual enthusiast ‘Rockhound’ will take you to where you want to goand show you what you never believed possible in the mines and forests of the north”.

If rockhounding interests you check out the preview of my book right here – click for a review of Rockhound.

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Tourmaline at Coe Hill Gold Mine

Rocks Minerals and Caves in Ontario – the north

IMG_1620, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

This is Ralph holding a slab of “tourmaline in quartz” at the Coe Hill gold mine. There is an intrusion or pocket at the top oif a hill on that property that consists almost exclusively of quartz impregnated tourmaline. One interesting thing about tthe tourmaline is that the spines are all bent as though they were being washed around in water – like a current moving sea fans. I suspect it has something to do with the cooling process.

You might notice the new header up at the top of the blog – that is courtesy of my “brother-in-law Nige”, he is a computer whiz and the guy who got me blogging in the first place. The picture has been derived from larger photo of the wheels of abandoned mine trolleys in Cobalt. I am off to Cobalt tomorrow so you can expect more pictures like that soon.

Reason for visiting Cobalt – to get more high Resolution picturesd for my upcoming book “Rockhounding: An Experience of the North” I dont want to give to much away at this time, but as you might surmise it will be of interest to mineral collectors – and inadvertantly – cavers as well as there are a few sidebars about Ontario caves – yet to be published material. I have a publisher who has shown interest in the idea – with some modification from the original format.

If you want to help me – link to my site – it will increase my ability to reach the world. Oh, and thanks Nige. You have some scotch coming your way.

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