I took a breather today and went over to the National History Museum mineral collection to see if I could find the Phelps Dodge samples that my client told me about.
I found some lovely things from Ajo that are labeled as being from Ajo, and some things from Bisbee that are labeled as being from Bisbee. There is a lovely piece of beautiful copper -- the most attractive piece of copper in the copper box, actually. I identified the green rocks I brought back from Ajo as being either Shattuckite, antlerlite, or something called diospase (?). They have a whole display box of blue/green copper-byproduct rocks. It was very educational.
Most interestingly, they have a whole display of asbestos samples. They have a very pretty piece of tremolite and several chrysotile pieces. The tremolite was almost pure white looking and braided in a stylish fashion. The chrysotile was grayer, but you could definitely see its columnar, crystalline formation. Very cool. And of course, there were thousands of silicates on display.
I think we should take the office on a field trip there. There are a whole bunch of meteorites, gems and rocks I didn't get to see. And a naturally magnetic blob of something. Did you know that if lightning strikes a blob of rock, that rock can become permanently magnetized? You are allowed to touch the magnetized blob they have there, and I spent some time this afternoon throwing paper clips at it.
posted by Anonymous @ 9:14 AM
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