Arguably the greatest mineral-collecting field trip of all time took place in July 1969, when two rockhounds gathered 48 pounds of specimens at a never-before-collected locality. Although admittedly short on aesthetic appeal, these specimens were a scientific bonanza and the most valuable mineral specimens ever collected.
The collectors were National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., the first humans to set foot on the Moon. The field trip was NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, and the locality was the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility. By 1972 when the Apollo program ended, 12 astronauts had walked on the Moon and collected 842 pounds of “moon rocks.” The significance of these celebrated rocks and what became of them during the half-century that followed is a fascinating tale of high security, meticulous accounting, worldwide distribution, unprecedented scientific study, and even a bit of fraud and greed.
Before Apollo, our geological and mineralogical knowledge of the Moon had amounted to educated guesswork based largely on the study of lunar meteorites. But lunar meteorites, pieces of the Moon’s surface that had been dislodged by meteoritic impacts and wound up on Earth, are rare. And their scientific value was limited because of unknown lunar geographic origin, alteration incurred in the heat of atmospheric entry, and long-term exposure to the Earth’s atmosphere.
EARLY THEORIES OF ORIGINS
This story is from the January 2020 edition of Rock&Gem Magazine.
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This story is from the January 2020 edition of Rock&Gem Magazine.
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MORGAN HILL POPPY JASPER
In California, there are very few places to collect semi-precious stones. Many locations from the past have been either exhausted of the material or the land has been developed.
THE ACORN
The briolette gemstone has the same design attributes of a regular gemstone, however, the pavilion is elongated and the crown is usually domed. This is perfect for an elegant pendant, earrings or a pendulum.
HOW TO PUT A PROTECTIVE CAP ON A CAB
To protect a specimen cab, often a cap is needed. In my case, I had a slab with the because of the color of the background and the pattern. This background had a more silicified consistency than most sandstones. It had no graininess like most sandstone, so I'm inclined to compare it to a jasper. The pattern was typical of a dendrite.
The Resilient Revival of Anne Brontë & Her Stones
For the first time, the Anne Brontë rock collection underwent complete description and identification, and along with Professor Hazel Hutchison of Leeds University and Dr. Enrique Lozano Diz at ELODIZ (a company specializing in spectroscopy analysis), an analysis of that collaboration, Anne Brontë and Geology: A Study of her Collection of Stones, was published in April 2022 in Volume 47, Issue 2 of the peer-reviewed journal, Brontë Studies & Gazette.\"
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