On Tuesday, June 4, 2024, at 7:00 p.m., we’ll be having our monthly meeting featuring…
Mineral Identification—Back to Basics
with John Betts!
About the presenter…
John Betts started collecting minerals in 1969 while living in California. His interest in minerals was heightened during a summer vacation in Maine, where he heard the famous mineral dealer Stan Perham lecture about the huge beryl crystals discovered at the Bumpus Quarry. John has collected Maine minerals ever since, along with those of other eastern states. His skills as a prolific field collector led to modest mineral sales at local mineral shows in the New York City area and beyond. In 1996, Mr. Betts started a website selling minerals (johnbetts-fineminerals.com) that rapidly expanded to the point that it was a second full-time job. In 2001, after 23 years of working as a product designer, John left design work to devote his full energy to selling minerals via the Internet. His site, featuring weekly updates of new minerals, ran nearly uninterrupted for 26 years. He retired from the mineral business at the end of 2023 after selling over 85,000 mineral specimens. Currently, his website is a virtual mineral museum with over 193,000 photographs illustrating more than 66,000 mineral specimens.
The details…
The process of identifying an unknown mineral can sometimes feel like looking up a word in the dictionary—you almost need to know how to spell a word to look it up. Mineral books and websites are full of facts about minerals, but they are typically organized by mineral species, not by the attributes that we can observe. Fortunately, 96% of the mineral species you will encounter in your collecting will be among the 100 most common mineral species (1.6% of the known species). This lecture will revisit the basics of mineral identification using ordinary objects in your home to narrow down the identification to likely species.
By using the basic techniques we learned when we got our first mineral book, many minerals can be quickly identified. This lecture will focus on three essential reference books, techniques to narrow the possibilities when looking up references, and how to approach identifying unknown minerals. It will include some simple tests, using everyday items, that you can perform quickly in your home. The lecture will also discuss strategies in what/why to test. Remember, we are not trying to pick one species out of more than 6000, we are trying to confirm one of the 100 common species. You may not be able to identify every mineral after this lecture, but the possibilities will be greatly narrowed to a few likely suspects. The lecture will conclude with an example of an unknown crystal, going through several quick tests, then determining the mineral species and even the most likely locality of origin.
The meeting will start with a greeting and brief business meeting, which will be followed by the presentation. Remember that our meetings are free and open to the public. Please bring your friends, family, or anyone interested so they can see what the Boston Mineral Club is all about! After the presentation, stick around for the traditional mineral raffle!
Hope to see you there!