On Tuesday, February 6, 2024, at 7:00 p.m., we’ll be having our monthly meeting featuring…
The Mineral History of New England Part 2: Waves of Granite
with Scot Krueger, BMC Vice President
About the presenter…
Scot Krueger is a retired geologist with a long family history connected to the Boston Mineral Club. Having returned from a career away in California and Texas, Scot has taken the time to read and explore to better understand the geologic history of the area. Based on what he has learned and synthesized, he has written over a dozen articles about the topic for the BMC newsletter.
The details…
The meeting will start with the usual business presentation, followed by Scot’s talk. This second installment of his series on the Mineral History of New England, called Waves of Granite, discusses the many waves of granitic intrusion, and their associated pegmatites, that have made New England world famous for mineral collectors.
As interesting as granites are, producing collectible minerals such as quartz, feldspar, mica, and topaz, the more spectacular mineralogy comes from the last melt fraction of many granites. These last melts become very enriched in light elements like lithium, beryllium, and boron, which tends to make them very fluid and capable of escaping the solidifying magma chamber to be emplaced into the surrounding country rocks as pegmatites. And it is the spectacular variety of tourmaline, beryl, spodumene, and other pegmatite minerals that has established New England as a world class collecting region.
Scot will be bringing some examples of granite and pegmatite minerals from New England, and members are also invited to bring 1 or 2 of their personal favorites to show (please not more, as we will quickly be overwhelmed!). As usual, there will be a mineral raffle at the close of the session.
Hope to see you there!