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Mineral specimen mortality
Mineralogical Record, Jul/Aug 2001 by Wilson, Wendell E, Currier, Rock H
An essay on the many ways in which mineral specimens can meet their end, illustrated by true stories from the archives of mineral collecting.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness.
John Keats (1795-1821)
INTRODUCTION
Keats was not thinking of mineral specimens. All too often their loveliness decreases, and ultimately many or most of them do pass into nothingness. These exquisite crystalline inventions of nature, assembled an atom at a time, concocted from carefully sorted and arranged groups of elements, have nestled quietly in the darkness of the earth for thousands, millions or even billions of years. At long last, pried out of their primordial beds, they come immediately into mortal danger from the fumble-fingered touch of humankind. Some die suddenly; others suffer a protracted death of progressive disfigurement and decay until, having become pathetic shadows of their original selves, they are deemed fit only for landfill. Perhaps the words of Pietro Aretino (1512) would be more appropriate:
"Those things that do not suffer mortal death are swiftly conducted to their end by time."
In this essay we will examine the many routes to destruction which threaten every mineral specimen. The perpetrators include virtually every collector, dealer and curator on earth, from the rank amateurs to the most experienced and venerated professionals. A series of true case histories will serve to make our point. In the end you will be amazed that any specimens survive the human gauntlet of accident, apathy, negligence, carelessness, ignorance and just plain bad luck. To the true lover of minerals: read on at your own risk; it won't be a pretty story.
THE LIFE-PATH OF SPECIMENS
When you really think about it, the dangers that threaten mineral specimens are numerous indeed. Of course, countless potentially fine specimens have been destroyed by nature before we ever get our hands on them. Mostly we are blissfully and mercifully unaware of what has been lost, but sometimes we do get a hint of what might have been. Heavily etched crystal fragments are sometimes all that remain of once beautiful crystals, especially in pegmatites. Pseudomorphism can turn beautiful crystals into unsightly fossils of solid rust. Tectonic movements along fault systems where mineralization has taken place can grind fine crystals into gravel. Perhaps worst of all on a volumetric basis, simple weathering can slowly destroy mineral deposits and crystals in quantities too massive to contemplate. Example: The Sweet Home mine in Colorado, home to what many consider to be the most beautiful rhodochrosite in the world. But, in the mine levels above the great discoveries, what do you find? Countless stalactites of multi-toned brown-black manganese oxide mud hanging from the adit roofs, and inches deep of such mud on the floor ... all that remains of rhodochrosite that once inhabited the oxidation zone of the deposit. What did the best of those crystals look like? We were too late to find out. We can philosophize that such chemical turnover is simply Nature's way, and that ultimately in the cycle of continental subduction and rebirth those elements will be recycled into new crystals, just as today's surviving rhodochrosites are the product of that process started long ago. The real issue is us: what happens to minerals once we reach for them.
A crystal rests in the ground, unchanged for years without number. And then one day an unnatural vibration reaches its dark crypt, as the work of miners chews its way closer and closer. Sometimes that vibration breaks crystals while still in the pocket. Sometimes the crystals are shattered in a sudden detonation, their first exposure to daylight taking place as their dust and fragments fly through the air.
If they are actually exposed intact, they are usually scooped up by front-end loaders, dumped into trucks and hauled off to the crusher. Should a collector be handy at that critical moment of vulnerability, and try to remove a crystal, there is still a high probability that it will suffer damage or total destruction at his hands. If it is collected intact, it may still not survive its unwrapping, cleaning and trimming. And if all that goes well, it may yet be dropped and broken, or succumb to environmental factors (heat, cold, humidity, chemical exposure, radiation damage, vibration, etc.) or natural disaster.
Because humans are mortal, a specimen will change hands many times in the decades after its discovery, each time facing the dangers of handling, wrapping, transportation, and unwrapping. If it arrives in a museum instead of a private collection, it may face repeated handling by museum visitors, and by the entire curatorial staff; and it may yet be sold or traded to another owner.
Colorful, transparent crystals face the additional threat of gemologists, lapidaries and investors lurking about making calculations as to how much more a crystal might be worth if cut and polished. Gemmy crystals, with most of their personality carved away, leaving only a sculpted fragment of their innards, have died, but the gemstones live on. This is marginally better than a cuprite crystal "surviving" in the form of a copper pipe (after smelting and fabrication) but not much.
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