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Tuesday 8th July 2003 The scheduled talk was to be Military Geology by Professor Peter Doyle. Unfortunately, Peter cancelled at the last minute as he was unwell. Our chairman organized an impromptu geological quiz. We were split into two groups and spent a rather jovial half hour or so, trying to answer the questions! After this we broke for few minutes for refreshments (tea) and then we viewed 20 minutes of a video about the history of mining in the Isle of Man. Especial attention was paid to the underground operations! It was just an all to brief look at the subject, one that makes you think was such a hard way of life necessary, and if so, then what other work must have been like to make this seem an attractive option. Hard times indeed! Members displays: Bob Williams put on a display of Volcanic Rocks he brought back from Tenerife a few years ago (makes you wonder what Customs thought?). Most were different forms of lava. Interestingly, one member brought in a couple of polished pebbles and a pendant made from Pietersite. She had brought these back from a recent trip to Namibia and asked us what we thought of the stone as she had been unable to find any references in the books. The stones had a lot in common with blue tiger eye, and one piece had golden swirls similar to tiger iron, so said I, but the 'fibres' were much finer. It had that feel of the quartz family of pebbles and the chatoyant blue patches, set in a black matrix, hinted that they may have been a replacement of a former crystal as the ends suggested angular terminations in two cases. On reflection it may be have been more correct to describe the texture as brecciated. All said, a rather charming stone. One of our esteemed members disagreed with my interpretation, but on this occasion, a check on the Internet confirmed my original thought as to belonging to the tiger eye family. You will be hard pressed to find a decent website with an adequate scientific explanation but try those below. Quite a pleasant relaxed evening in the end, and none of us seemed too disappointed!
Links: Isle of Man: http://www.derbyscc.org.uk/caving/miningtrips_iom.htm
http://www.iomonline.co.im/ftpinc/mines/index.htm http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RBurt/MinHistNet/1896-B2.htm http://www.caveinfo.org.uk/cerberus/Journals/jnl23501.htm
http://www.renorockclub.com/properties/pietersite.html http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/jul00str.cfm
http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/country/2000/wamyb00.pdf
© R Coleman August 2003 |