Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA (original) (raw)
Formula: ◻Ca2(Mg4.5-2.5Fe0.5-2.5)Si8O22(OH)2
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Formula: Na(AlSi3O8)
Localities: Reported from at least 17 localities in this region.
Habit: primary crystals blocky, complex, striated. Secondary ones tabular, rhombic, as druses or overgrowths
Colour: white, tan
Description: Mostly a rock-forming mineral, as coarse, white grains in the outer zones of the pegmatite. But also as a very late crystallizing K-rich variety (described by Jenks 1935), very fine-grained and tan colored with cleavelandite in the inner mineralized zone. The K-rich variety forms tiny, tabular, rhombic crystals or saw-toothed overgrowths on cleavelandite in numerous small pockets in this zone.
Formula: Na(AlSi3O8)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: tabular
Colour: white to pale blue or green
Description: Coarse tabular aggregates, commonly with terminations in interstitial spaces, forms much of the matrix of the up to 45-foot-thick plagioclase-quartz intermediate zone that hosts much of the interesting mineralization such as morganite, elbaite, spodumene, lepidolite, montebrasite, K-rich albite, cookeite, columbite, tantalite, wodginite, quartz crystals, etc.
Formula: (Na,Ca)[Al(Si,Al)Si2O8]
Habit: anhedral grains to parallel-growth
Colour: white
Description: The typical albite variety in host metamorphic rocks, best crystals are parallel growth habit in Alpine-cleft type openings within the host Collins Hill Formation schist unit, with cubic pyrite, chlorite and tiny anatase crystals.
Formula: Na(AlSi3O8)
Formula: (CaCe)(AlAlFe2+)O[Si2O7][SiO4](OH)
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: subhedral tabular
Colour: black
Description: Aggregates of subhedral crystals to 1.5 cm. SEM-EDS analysis found no thorium in the sample.
Formula: (A12+REE3+)(M13+M23+M32+)O[Si2O7][SiO4](OH)
Description: Reference contains a list with no details.
Formula: Fe2+3Al2(SiO4)3
Localities: Reported from at least 10 localities in this region.
Habit: trapezohedral, granular
Colour: maroon to red-brown
Description: As generally small crystals in the outer zones of the pegmatite, but also massive concentrations mixed with fluorapatite, zinnwaldite/masutomilite, elbaite and columbite-(Fe) in cleavelandite. Gemmy crystals in this assemblage confirmed using Raman spectroscopy typically partially replaced by waxy yellow fine-grained muscovite (also confirmed by Raman). Also, in the host metamorphic rocks as a component of "coticule" rock. This rock is described by Lundgren (1979) (the bedrock quadrangle report for Haddam - QR37) as a "bedded garnet-quartz rock (coticule) that consists of thin layers (millimeter-to-centimeter thick) of fine-grained spessartine-quartz granofels. Plagioclase, biotite [annite], and hornblende are present in some layers, but the rocks are essentially aggregates of very small (less than 0.05-0.1 mm) garnet crystals and quartz." Though coticule from around New England has been described as containing spessartine, the particular garnet species here was recently confirmed as almandine using Raman spectroscopy by Paul Bartholomew at U. New Haven. Schooner describes coticule as "a granular pink spessartine rock...can be found in many parts of the area, as in the vicinity of the Strickland quarry. Veins are usually thin and sinuous, but may reach a thickness of several inches. Such material is attractive in large polished slabs."
Formula: LiAl(PO4)F
Description: Re-identified as montebrasite.
Formula: Na(AlSi2O6) · H2O
Habit: trapezohedra
Colour: white
Description: Very late crystallizing with fluorite and siderite in pockets of K-rich albite and cleavelandite of the inner mineralized zone.
Formula: TiO2
Habit: crude to perfect elongated bipyramidal
Colour: metallic to honey-brown
Description: Tiny micro-crystals <1 mm crudely to perfectly crystalline and appear metallic on the crystal surfaces, broken ones reveal honey-brown, resinous interior. Associated with cubic pyrite and chlorite crystals in spaces between vuggy albite in host schist Alpine-type openings. Schooner (circa 1985) reports: "A micromount of anatase and rutile crystals, associated with adularia, was once collected at the Strickland quarry. Narrow alpine-type veins are encountered in the schist adjoining the pegmatite."
Formula: PbSO4
Habit: coating
Colour: gray
Description: Schooner (1955): a thin grayish coating on galena which had been exposed to much weathering on the oldest of the Strickland Quarry dumps. The matrix, in his one good specimen, is a mixture of secondary albite and gray lepidolite.
Formula: KFe2+3(AlSi3O10)(OH)2
Localities: Reported from at least 10 localities in this region.
Formula: Ca(Al2Si2O8)
Habit: massive granular
Colour: yellowish
Description: According to Schooner (circa 1985): "Yellowish anorthite is rather common in the calc-silicate assembly [in the host Collins Hill Formation]".
Formula: CaCO3
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: As2O3
Habit: powder
Colour: yellowish
Description: Schooner (1955): "as yellowish powdery incrustations on decomposed arsenopyrite at the Strickland Quarry. One rather large mass of the unusual material was taken out of the pegmatite which adjoins the schist in the cut above the main pit. Pyrite is associated, in all the specimens."
Formula: FeAsS
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: Schooner (1955): "crystals, of the finest quality, though of small size, are rarely collected from the pegmatite at the Strickland Quarry. The author has several specimens, showing the mineral in a variety of matrices, and he saw the remains of a 1 inch crystal, in the wall of the aforementioned cut." Schooner (circa 1985): "Excellent little crystals are rarely found at the Strickland quarry, either isolated or with sphalerite and pyrite. A few 1/2 inch rough crystals were embedded in the interior of a large pseudomorph of muscovite after schorl."
Formula: Al2(PO4)(OH)3
Colour: gray
Description: Specimens of metasomatically altered natromontebrasite, collected at the Strickland quarry around 1950 by Charles Thomas, consist of gray augelite crystals intergrown with pink brazilianite, pink hydroxylapatite, and yellow lacroixite. Very little such material was preserved, and most of it was consumed in study at the U.S. Geological Survey. Natromontebrasite was discredited in 2007, being a mixture of montebrasite, lacroixite, and wardite.
Formula: (CaxMgyFez)(Mgy1Fez1)Si2O6
Habit: massive granular
Colour: brown
Description: "A striking brown clinopyroxene, with a silky luster, collected at the Strickland quarry, gives an X-ray pattern closer to fassaite than diopside or augite. As learned from similar material, at the railroad cut two miles west, the surficial alteration is a smectite, corroborating the aluminum content. Fassaite also accompanies zoisite, quite abundantly, at ledges immediately west of the Strickland quarry." Schooner (circa 1985).
Formula: (Ca,Na)(Mg,Fe2+,Al,Fe3+,Ti)[(Si,Al)2O6]
Habit: massive granular
Colour: brown
Description: "A striking brown clinopyroxene, with a silky luster, collected at the Strickland quarry, gives an X-ray pattern closer to fassaite than diopside or augite. As learned from similar material, at the railroad cut two miles west, the surficial alteration is a smectite, corroborating the aluminum content. Fassaite also accompanies zoisite, quite abundantly, at ledges immediately west of the Strickland quarry." Schooner (circa 1985).
Formula: Ca(UO2)2(PO4)2 · 10-12H2O
Localities: Reported from at least 7 localities in this region.
Habit: tabular flakes, coatings
Colour: pale yellow
Fluorescence: bright green
Description: Should be referred to as meta-autunite as all such material is dehydrated. Associated with uraninite and uranophane.
Formula: Ca4Be2Al2Si9O26(OH)2
Formula: Be3Sc2(Si6O18)
Formula: Be4(Si2O7)(OH)2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: tabular or as v-twins
Colour: colorless to pale green
Description: Clear, glassy, micro-crystals in pockets with secondary albite. Groups of distinct crystals and reticulated platy aggregates up to several inches in diameter have been collected.
Formula: Be3Al2(Si6O18)
Localities: Reported from at least 15 localities in this region.
Habit: hexagonal prisms with pinacoids
Colour: pale green
Description: Large rough masses, plenty of ore grade material, less commonly as subhedral to euhedral hexagonal crystals in matrix.
Formula: Be3Al2Si6O18
Localities: Reported from at least 7 localities in this region.
Habit: elongated hexagonal prisms with pinacoids
Colour: blue
Description: Typically rough masses or subhedral to euhedral hexagonal crystals in matrix. Gem material was common.
Formula: Be3Al2(Si6O18)
Colour: white
Description: In the mineralized core zone.
Formula: Be3Al2(Si6O18)
Localities:
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Unnamed Prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: elongated to short hexagonal prisms
Colour: yellow
Description: Much less common than the green and blue varieties.
Formula: Be3Al2(Si6O18)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: anhedral to subhedral tabular hexagonal
Colour: pink to rosy
Description: Usually anhedral to subhedral filling spaces in cleavelandite. Some gems have been cut. The Peabody Museum of Yale University exhibits a superb, gemmy, rose beryl crystal, six or eight inches across and no more than two inches thick. Sterrett (1923) describes another morganite on display at Wesleyan: "in one pocket an irregularly shaped fragment of transparent pale salmon-pink beryl was found. It is 2 1/2 inches long and 1 inch thick, with an exceedingly rough honeycombed and drusy surface. It is evidently the remnant of a much larger crystal, most of which has been dissolved, leaving only a part with a rough etched surface."
Formula: Bi2O3
Localities:
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: coatings
Colour: yellow
Description: as coatings on feldspar and quartz, an alteration product of bismutite.
Formula: Bi2S3
Localities:
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: (BiO)2CO3
Localities:
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Nike prospect, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: massive replacement of bismuthinite
Colour: yellow-green to gray
Description: A mass in the George Brush collection was analyzed (Wells, 1887).
Formula: Fe3+2Bi(SiO4)2(OH)
Habit: massive coatings
Colour: green
Description: Associated with bismuthinite and pyrite with secondary bismite, bismutite (some or all may in fact be bismutoferrite) and goethite staining pegmatite matrix.
Formula: CaLiAl2(AlBeSi2O10)(OH)2
Habit: hexagonal
Colour: white
Description: Schooner (circa 1985) says: "When the Strickland quarry was last active, the author found a boulder of cleavelandite with a small vug of aggregated lustrous white hexagonal-looking crystals with calcite and a trace of lepidolite. It was many years before the mineral was recognized as being a mica! Its unusual X-ray pattern aroused some curiosity, and it was forwarded to Pete J. Dunn at the Smithsonian. He identified it as bityite, and made an analysis by electron microprobe."
Formula: NaAl3(PO4)2(OH)4
Colour: pink
Description: Schooner (circa 1985) says: "A few masses of Strickland quarry natromontebrasite, from the pollucite zone in the middle eastern wall, halfway down, are composed of intergrown metasomatic or hydrothermal alterations. Pink brazilianite, containing a trace of Mn (analysis by the USGS), is associated with augelite, lacroixite, and hydroxylapatite. This mineral was collected by Charles Thomas, and studied by Mary E. Mrose. Ronald E. Januzzi had earlier collected material, on the old dumps, in which the brazilianite occurs as confused white aggregates, with hydroxylapatite and possibly morinite." Natromontebrasite was discredited in 2007, being a mixture of montebrasite, lacroixite, and wardite.
Formula: CaCO3
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: SnO2
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: CuFeS2
Localities:
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: Included in a list by Schooner (1958) with no details, but very plausibly in small quantities.
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: Mg3(Si2O5)(OH)4
Description: Thoroughly unreasonable guess.
Formula: (CaCa)(AlAlAl)O[Si2O7][SiO4](OH)
Description: In the host metamorphic rocks.
Formula: Fe2+Nb2O6
Localities: Reported from at least 7 localities in this region.
Habit: tabular to elongated prisms
Colour: black with yellow, blue to purple iridescence
Description: As small pocket crystals to large subhedral masses in the intermediate plagioclase-quartz mineralized zone. Schooner (1958): "innumerable specimens, including well developed crystals up to three or four inches across; heavy aggregates of parallel tabular crystals in cleavelandite were abundant when the locality was active in 1953."
ⓘ 'Columbite-(Fe)-Columbite-(Mn) Series'
Localities:
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: tabular
Colour: black with colorful iridescence
Formula: Mn2+Nb2O6
✪ 'Columbite-(Mn)-Tantalite-(Mn) Series'
Habit: rectangular prisms
Colour: dark reddish to reddish brown
Description: Columbite-tantalite crystals with reddish color and some translucency have been historically called tantalite-(Mn) without supporting analyses (even SG) but visually could equally be columbite-(Mn). Strong illumination is typically needed to see the color and translucency. Most are small (<1 cm) and embedded in matrix.
Formula: (LiAl4◻)[AlSi3O10](OH)8
Habit: micro-globular aggregates, masses, pseudomorphs after spodumene
Colour: pale yellow
Description: Typically as tiny spheres of crystal aggregates with K-rich albite, micas, elbaite, quartz, calcite, pyrite, fluorite, and bertrandite in cleavelandite of the mineralized intermediate plagioclase-quartz zone. Rare pseudomorphs of spodumene. Schooner (1955) says: "solid masses of bright yellow fine-grained material. Some pieces were seen to be as much as 4 or 5 inches thick, the mineral having occurred as a lining in a long cavity or series of cavities."
Formula: (Mg,Fe)2Al3(AlSi5O18)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: Foye (1922): "found within the Bolton [Collins Hill] schist a few centimeters from its contact with the pegmatite".
Formula: CaAl3(PO4)(PO3OH)(OH)6
Description: Schooner (1955) reports it "as microscopic crystals associated with bertrandite" found by Gunnar Bjareby. However, he does not mention it in any of his subsequent writings on the area.
Formula: Cu8AgBi13S24
Habit: massive, coatings
Description: Associated with bismuthinite and pyrite with secondary bismite, bismutite (some or all may in fact be bismutoferrite) and goethite staining pegmatite matrix.
Formula: (KNa)(Mn2+◻)Ca(Na2Na)Mn2+13Al(PO4)11(PO4)(OH)2
Habit: flakes, coating on altered lithiophilite
Colour: olive green
Description: Schooner (1955): "Little scales of the rare phosphate are seen on a few specimens."
Formula: CaMgSi2O6
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: Likely from calc-silicate rock units in the Collins Hill Formation hosting the pegmatite.
Formula: Na(Li1.5Al1.5)Al6(Si6O18)(BO3)3(OH)3(OH)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: elongated prisms
Colour: olive to grass green; blue-green; bright pink; pastel green, pink (watermelon), blue and gray to colorless
Fluorescence: blue
Description: Mostly subhedral, shattered crystals in matrix but several crystal-rich pockets are described in the literature. Crystals common in late-stage vuggy cleavelandite with tan, high-K albite, quartz, pyrite, mica, cookeite, micas, etc. Most crystals grass green throughout, usually poorly terminated in cookeite or albite, may show pedion or shallow rhomb or grade into parallel asbestiform crystals. Crystals generally concentrically rather than longitudinally color zoned. Green and blue-green overgrowths (these may be foitite) on schorl common or concentrically zoned with very dark blue-green core, grass green intermediate zone and olive green outer zone. Smaller crystals can be pure bright pink, these are commonly etched. Pastel colored crystals can be watermelon zoned (some pink cores fluoresce blue) or almost blue-gray and lavender-gray to colorless. A blue-gray alteration is common in fractures through the lavender crystals.
Formula: Mn2+Al(PO4)(OH)2 · H2O
Description: Rarely occurs with rhodochrosite and other secondary alterations of lithiophilite nodules.
Formula: (CaCa)(AlAlFe3+)O[Si2O7][SiO4](OH)
Localities:
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Appletree Lane, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: short prismatic
Colour: olive green
Description: small crystals <1 cm in calcite
Formula: MgSO4 · 7H2O
Habit: efflorescence
Description: Schooner (1958): "occurs very sparingly with pickeringite, in efflorescences on protected schist ledges in the cut above the Strickland Quarry. It is distinguished from pickeringite by its different taste… the same as that of artificial Epsom salt."
Formula: BeAl(SiO4)(OH)
Colour: colorless
Description: Etched, elongated microcrystals with rhombic cross-section and wedge-shaped terminations. With secondary quartz and cookeite coating a pocket quartz.
Formula: LiAlSiO4
Description: Speculation by Schooner.
Formula: (Y,Ca,Ce,U,Th)(Nb,Ta,Ti)2O6
Description: Reference by Januzzi (1976) to this mineral being found by Schooner in "Portland" correlates only with a report by Schooner (circa 1985) from the Hale Quarry in Portland. Schooner makes no mention if it from Strickland in his various comprehensive publications, especially his last, Schooner (circa 1985).
Formula: Ca2Mn2+(PO4)2 · 2H2O
Habit: radiating
Colour: white
Description: radiating fans of micro crystals in altered lithiophilite, with hureaulite, hydroxylapatite.
Habit: anhedral to subhedral blocky
Colour: white, tan, pale pink
Description: aka - microcline. A major rock-forming component of the pegmatites, the largest and best crystals terminate in the quartz cores and can reach over 20 cm.
ⓘ 'Feldspar Group var. Perthite'
Habit: anhedral to subhedral blocky
Colour: white, tan, pale pink
Description: aka - microcline. A major rock-forming component of the pegmatites, the largest and best crystals terminate in the quartz cores and can reach over 20 cm.
Formula: Fe2(MoO4)3 · nH2O
Colour: yellowish
Description: alteration of molybdenite
Formula: Ca5(PO4)3F
Localities: Reported from at least 11 localities in this region.
Habit: tabular to short hexagonal prisms
Colour: white, pink, green, blue, lavender
Fluorescence: bright yellow
Description: Primary crystallization as typically massive and skeletal segregations mixed with almandine, dark brown mica, and columbite-(Fe) in a cleavelandite matrix. Tons of it were removed during the activity in 1953. But more interesting as a secondary crystallization characterized by clear, white, lavender to pale blue, tabular to short, euhedral micro-crystals (mostly <<1") in pockets with K-rich albite, elbaite, fluorite, pyrite, calcite, micas, etc.
ⓘ Fluorapatite var. Manganese-bearing Fluorapatite
Formula: (Ca,Mn2+)5(PO4)3(F,Cl,OH) or Ca5([P,Mn5+]O4)3(F,Cl,OH)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: anhedral to stubby subhedral hexagons
Colour: grayish green to blue-green, white, pale blue
Fluorescence: yellow
Description: An old term that should be abandoned, see description under fluorapatite.
Formula: CaF2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Gotta-Walden Prospect, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: cubic to octahedral
Colour: purple, pale green, pale yellow, colorless
Description: Typically as small rounded to cubo-octahedral crystals <1-inch, commonly etched, in pockets in secondary K-rich albite of the mineralized quartz-plagioclase intermediate zone, commonly with pyrite and calcite.
Formula: ◻(Fe2+2Al)Al6(Si6O18)(BO3)3(OH)3(OH)
Description: Grading into elbaite, associated with wodginite, cassiterite, quartz and gobbinsite.
Formula: ZnAl2O4
Localities:
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Nike prospect, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Habit: octahedral
Colour: dark green
Description: translucent, micro crystals and anhedral aggregates with beryl in smoky quartz
Formula: PbS
Habit: cleavable masses
Description: Schooner (1955) says: "often been found at the Strickland Quarry by the author. His specimens are mostly of small size, but they show galena in close association with lepidolite, lithiophilite, spodumene, amblygonite albite, manganotantalite, green tourmaline, and yellow sphalerite". In Schooner (circa 1985) he further elaborates: "At the Strickland quarry, little cleavages of galena have often been collected, intimately associated with feldspar or calcite; also in the whole range of lithium minerals, elbaite, spodumene, montebraesite, petalite, and lepidolite; additionally, in the cesium zeolite, pollucite. The largest mass is about an inch in diameter. Occasionally, there are intergrowths of galena with brown sphalerite. In the pollucite zone, a narrow, irregular seam was filled with galena, yielding the odd combinations already cited."
Formula: X3Z2(SiO4)3
Formula: Ca2Al[AlSiO7]
Habit: tetragonal prisms
Colour: light brown
Description: Tiny crystals in lens-like bodies of calc-silicate rock in the host Collins Hill Formation. Optical and X-ray study by Waldemar T. Schaller at the USGS indicate gehlenite, associated with diopside, grossular, wollastonite, and spurrite.
Formula: Na5(Si11Al5)O32 · 11H2O
Description: Asociated with foitite grading into elbaite, wodginite, cassiterite, and quartz.
Formula: α-Fe3+O(OH)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: earthy crusts
Colour: dark brown
Description: In pockets in secondary K-rich albite encrusting other associated minerals and pseudomorphing pyrite, from which it is probably derived.
Formula: ZnSO4 · 7H2O
Habit: efflorescence
Colour: white
Description: "A thin coating of white goslarite, with a characteristic sharp taste, was found on the protected bottom of a pegmatite boulder, containing sphalerite and pyrite, on a Strickland quarry dump. Such material is, of course, ephemeral, because of its hydrosoluble nature." (Schooner, circa 1985).
Formula: C
Habit: anhedral
Description: Minor component of the host metamorphic rocks.
Formula: CdS
Habit: encrustation
Colour: yellow
Description: Schooner (1955) says it: "was discovered at Collins Hill by the author, about ten years ago. Little was seen, and only one example was collected. The mineral consisted of bright yellow coatings on sphalerite, from the cut above the Strickland Quarry". There is so much else this could be....
Formula: Ca3Al2(SiO4)3
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: Mn3+O(OH)
Habit: massive crust
Colour: black
Description: Thick black crust on altered lithiophilite with hureaulite and hydroxylapatite.
Colour: reddish-orange
Description: Associated with crystallized uraninite.
Formula: CaSO4 · 2H2O
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: Al2(Si2O5)(OH)4
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: earthy to waxy masses
Colour: tan
Description: Alteration of pollucite, so occurs as thin crusts and veins with elbaite, pollucite, cleavelandite.
Formula: Fe2O3
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Habit: encrustation
Colour: red
Description: Schooner (1955) reports it "as rouge-like coatings on mica schist, is abundant in the cut which is located above the main part of the Strickland Quarry".
Formula: (Fe3+,Mn3+)PO4
Colour: purple
Description: secondary after triphylite (Foye 1922)
Formula: MgSO4 · 6H2O
Description: Discovered by Richard Schooner as an "efflorescence on schist" at an undisclosed Portland location, reported by Januzzi, but details lacking.
ⓘ 'Hornblende Root Name Group'
Formula: ◻Ca2(Z2+4Z3+)(AlSi7O22)(OH,F,Cl)2
Localities:
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: Mn2+5(PO3OH)2(PO4)2 · 4H2O
Habit: massive, etched
Colour: red-brown, orange-red to pink
Description: massive, earthy to vitreous, translucent, etched, cellular alteration of lithiophilite, with white hydroxylapatite and sicklerite. Confirmed again in 2014 using Raman spectroscopy, by Paul Bartholomew, U. New Haven.
Formula: Ca5(PO4)3(OH)
Habit: pearly opalescent crust or stubby, rounded hexagons
Colour: white
Description: As white overgrowth on purple fluorapatite as a late crystallization hosted by K-rich albite and as a massive to micro chalky-white crystals and opalescent rind around altered lithiophilite with hureaulite and groutite. Schooner (circa 1985) calls the latter opaline or chalcedonic variety francolite (under the heading for carbonate fluorapatite). Specimens of metasomatically altered montebrasite, collected at the Strickland quarry around 1950 by Charles Thomas, consist of gray augelite crystals intergrown with pink brazilianite, pink hydroxylapatite, and yellow lacroixite.
Formula: CaBe(PO4)(OH)
Habit: microscopic chisel-shaped
Colour: colorless
Description: Very fine grained granular alteration of beryl (with moraesite) with tiny, chisel-like clear crystals in tiny voids.
Formula: Fe2+TiO3
Localities:
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Formula: A(D3)G6(T6O18)(BO3)3X3Z
Formula: U4+Fe2+Nb2O8
Habit: tabular
Colour: black with brown coating
Description: metamict crystals with obsidian-like conchoidal fracture
References:
Formula: Al2(Si2O5)(OH)4
Colour: white
Description: chalky masses, in association with calcite and pyrite
Formula: KAlSi3O8
Colour: creamy
Description: Microcrystals in voids in amphibolite with tremolite.
Formula: Al2(SiO4)O
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Unnamed building stone quarry, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: elongated blades
Colour: blue
Description: Found in metamorphic host rock, especially above a small rock quarry on the west side of the hill to the right of the road which ascends Collins Hill. Crystals to a few inches.
Formula: NaAl(PO4)F
Habit: granular
Colour: pale yellow
Description: From Schooner (circa 1985): "Mary E. Mrose [USGS] studied some exceptional material collected at the Strickland quarry by Charles Thomas, when the last sporadic work was done in the non-flooded pit. Lacroixite formed rather granular pale yellow areas in a mixture of augelite, brazilianite, and hydroxylapatite (?), replacing natromontebrasite. Her paper redefined the species, which had been in question." Natromontebrasite was discredited in 2007, being a mixture of montebrasite, lacroixite, and wardite.
Formula: Ca2SiO4
Colour: grayish
Description: Schooner (circa 1985): "One of the calc-silicate pods at the Strickland quarry contained the usual fine-grained diopside, grossularite, and wollastonite, with the addition of a 1/2 inch zone of grayish cleavable larnite, giving a distinct X-ray pattern." Studied by Waldemar T. Schaller of USGS.
Formula: U(Nb,Ta)2O8
Habit: massive
Colour: yellow
Description: Associated with petscheckite and columbite.
Localities: Reported from at least 6 localities in this region.
Habit: crusts and coatings
Colour: brown
Description: stains or coatings on other minerals
Formula: LiMn2+PO4
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Colour: deep orange-red to reddish brown to light brown
Description: with some spodumene and lepidolite; some very fine specimens of deep orange-red color in quartz
ⓘ Lithiophilite var. Sicklerite
Formula: Li1-x(Mn3+xMn2+1-x)PO4
Habit: crusts
Colour: brown
Description: Thin brown crust on altered lithiophilite with hureaulite and hydroxylapatite.
Formula: FeAs2
Habit: tabular microcrystals
Colour: iridescent
Description: Some beautifully developed crystals have come from the Strickland Quarry, including small brilliant ones in granular lepidolite (Schooner, 1961). A few years ago, some tiny iridescent tabular crystals were noted in specimens of coarsely granular golden-brown zinnwaldite from the Strickland quarry. X-ray study indicates they are loellingite (Schooner. circa 1985).
Formula: ◻Ca2(Mg4Al)(Si7Al)O22(OH)2
Habit: acicular masses
Colour: dark green
Description: Crystalline masses matching the description of "actinolite" by Schooner with grossular and rutile, part of a calc-silicate assemblage in the Collins Hill Formation hosting the pegmatite. Identified by TEM-EDS in 2016.
Formula: Fe2+Fe3+2O4
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Penfield Quarry (Oak Leaf Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: micro inclusions in mica
Colour: black
Description: Magnetite inclusions are present in many mica books, especially in mica from the part of the wall zone along the footwall.
Formula: Cu2(CO3)(OH)2
Habit: massive
Colour: bright green
Description: coatings and massive concentrations associated with sphalerite
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: dendritic encrustations
Colour: black
ⓘ 'Manganese Oxides var. Manganese Dendrites'
Localities:
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: dendritic coatings
Colour: black to dark brown
Formula: Mn3+O(OH)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: Speculation by Schooner (1958). Black crusts associated with altered lithiophilite are groutite.
Formula: (K,Rb)(Li,Mn3+,Al)3(AlSi3O10)(F,OH)2
Formula: Fe2+(H2O)6SO4 · H2O
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: alteration crust on pyrite
Colour: gray
Description: Very fragile grayish crystals on decomposing pyrite and pyrrhotite.
Formula: Ca(UO2)2(PO4)2 · 6H2O
Localities:
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: thin flakes
Colour: pale yellow-green
Fluorescence: green
Description: used to be collected in genuine museum pieces
Formula: Cu(UO2)2(PO4)2 · 8H2O
Localities:
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Habit: tabular
Colour: emerald green
Description: micaceous flakes are quite large, being about one-eighth inch across (Jones (1960)) magnificent specimens...was common, around l94l or 1942 (Schooner (1958) sometimes covers the specimens so thickly as to give them a solid green appearance (Little 1942)
Formula: K(AlSi3O8)
Localities: Reported from at least 18 localities in this region.
Formula: K(AlSi3O8)
Description: small crystals (Bastin 1910)
Formula: A2-mTa2X6-wZ-n
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Habit: dodecahedral often with octahedral and cubic forms
Colour: black, honey brown, dark green, yellow-green
Description: Crystals typically up to a few mm, mostly as broken black crystals in lepidolite and cleavelandite, yellow crystals are rarely embedded in tantalite. Zoned crystals are common, wherein yellow and black sectors are sharply divided. Like most regional microlite, they are radioactive.
Formula: Ca2Fe3+3(PO4)3O2 · 3H2O
Habit: alteration
Colour: yellow-green
Description: Rare coating on altered lithiophilite.
Formula: MoS2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: tabular hexagonal to anhedral scales
Colour: silvery metallic
Description: Sharp little crystals to 1/2-inch, shapeless scales, "foil-like wads" in vein quartz with pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite in the host metamorphic rocks or in marginal pegmatite.
Formula: Ce(PO4)
Localities:
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: roughly rectangular and flattened
Colour: red-brown
Description: Large, well formed monazite crystals (2 to 3 cm. in diameter) (Foye 1922) up to 2 inches with brown staining (Schooner 1958)
Formula: REE(PO4)
Formula: LiAl(PO4)(OH)
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Colour: white
Description: locally in the core zone in crystals which commonly show a good but rough crystal form. Some of its crystals reach three or four inches in length. The outer crystal edges are usually altered on the surfaces to a tan colored alteration product.
Formula: (Na,Ca)0.33(Al,Mg)2(Si4O10)(OH)2 · nH2O
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: earthy
Colour: pink
Description: As crumbly, soft, pink masses where spodumene has decomposed.
Formula: Be2(PO4)(OH) · 4H2O
Habit: Acicular, encrustations
Colour: white
Description: Merged sprays of acicular crystals forming a white crust on massive beryl, with hydroxylherderite.
Formula: NaCa2Al2(PO4)2(OH)F4 · 2H2O
Description: Unconfirmed. According to Schooner (circa 1985): "A few masses of Strickland quarry natromontebraesite, from the pollucite zone in the middle eastern wall, halfway down, are composed of intergrown metasomatic or hydrothermal alterations. Pink brazilianite, containing a trace of Mn (analysis by the USGS), is associated with augelite, lacroixite, and hydroxylapatite. This mineral was collected by Charles Thomas, and studied by Mary E. Mrose [USGS]. Ronald E. Januzzi had earlier collected material, on the old dumps, in which the brazilianite occurs as confused white aggregates, with hydroxylapatite and possibly morinite."
Formula: KAl2(AlSi3O10)(OH)2
Localities: Reported from at least 17 localities in this region.
Habit: tabular, waxy secondary replacement of gemmy almandine
Colour: yellowish-green to pale brown
Description: According to Cameron et al (1954), in the albite-quartz-muscovite wall zone muscovite forms books 2 inches to 6 feet broad and ½ to 12 inches thick. These were heavily mined in the early 1940s. Smaller crystals occur in the other zones, except the quartz core. The output of the Schoonmaker mine and Strickland Quarry places the Strickland pegmatite among the most productive mica pegmatites in the country with a total yield estimated at more than 4,500 tons of mine-run mica. Waxy, yellow fine-grained replacement of gemmy almandine (both confirmed by Raman spectroscopy at the University of New Haven) showing included, remnant, etched pieces of the garnet.
Formula: KAl2(AlSi3O10)(OH)2
Habit: parallel-growth fibers with rhombic section
Colour: lavender to pink
Description: Typically as overgrowths on muscovite, or as micro-crystals in vugs with K-rich albite, cookeite, bertrandite, elbaite, etc. Similar to, but not as well developed, as the overgrowths found at the Gillette Quarry.
Formula: Na2Al2Si3O10 · 2H2O
Description: Reference contains only a list with no details, and natrolite is questioned in the reference. Very unlikely.
Description: Schooner (circa 1985) reports: "A few years ago, John Gillespie did a spectrographic analysis on a sample submitted by the author, finding much Na and hardly any Li. It is quite possible that natromontebrasite was fairly common... A few masses of Strickland quarry natromontebrasite, from the pollucite zone in the middle eastern wall, halfway down, are composed of intergrown metasomatic or hydrothermal alterations. Pink brazilianite, containing a trace of Mn (analysis by the USGS), is associated with augelite, lacroixite, and hydroxylapatite. This mineral was collected by Charles Thomas, and studied by Mary E. Mrose [USGS]." This mineral was discredited in 2007 as a mixture of montebrasite, lacroixite and wardite.
Formula: NaMn2+PO4
Habit: elongated subhedral grains
Colour: light yellow
Description: Subhedral, glassy, elongated grains embedded in lithiophilite.
Formula: SiO2 · nH2O
Localities: Reported from at least 7 localities in this region.
Description: see Opal-AN variety.
Formula: SiO2 · nH2O
Localities: Reported from at least 6 localities in this region.
Habit: coatings, bubbly crusts
Colour: colorless to pale green
Fluorescence: bright green
Description: Typically as thin coatings only easily visible under SW UV light. Minor clear, bubbly crusts occur in secondary mineralizations.
Formula: K(AlSi3O8)
Localities:
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: Erroneously reported by old literature or casual collectors. Microcline has been verified by Cameron et al (1954) and Stugard (1958) as the only potassium feldspar for the entire Middletown pegmatite district.
Formula: Pb2(UO2)(PO4)2
Habit: alteration of uraninite
Description: Schooner (circa 1985) reports: "A soft uraninite alteration, on a Wesleyan University sample from the Strickland quarry, gave the X-ray pattern of parsonsite. The available material was consumed in testing."
Formula: LiAl(Si4O10)
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: granular to cleavable masses
Colour: pale grey to white
Description: Schooner (1958) says: "sparingly associated with the pollucite which the author discovered at the Strickland Quarry in Portland in l954. It was in the form of glassy white or colorless cleavages and coarsely crystalline aggregates." Later, in Schooner (circa 1985), he elaborates: "Good specimens of white petalite, closely associated with colorless pollucite, were collected deep in the Strickland quarry, in the early 1950s. The author appears to have the only such material. It is usually granular, so the perfect cleavage is not as conspicuous as might be expected. The petalite was verified by X-ray diffraction. Similar petalite has been found on the dumps, intergrown with spodumene; the spodumene may be thoroughly altered to 'pinite', whereas the petalite, being much more stable, is in a fresh condition."
Formula: UFe(Nb,Ta)2O8
Habit: massive
Colour: black
Description: Glassy metamict material associated with liandratite and columbite. Data required to substantiate this entry.
Formula: Be2SiO4
Habit: striated, slightly etched elongated prisms
Colour: colorless
Description: Clear crystals to 3 mm in vug in cleavalandite with K-rich albite, bertrandite to 5 mm, quartz and goethite after pyrite.
Formula: KMg3(AlSi3O10)(OH)2
Habit: micaceous
Colour: dark brown
Description: Schooner (1958) speculates that the brown mica in the calc-silicate units in the host Collins Hill Formation is dravite. In Schooner (circa 1985) he writes that "blocks of intergrown dravite and phlogopite have been collected; they came from the pegmatite near its contact with schist". In both cases, analytical data are lacking.
Formula: KCa(H3O)3(UO2)7(PO4)4O4 · 8H2O
Formula: MgAl2(SO4)4 · 22H2O
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: reniform crusts
Colour: white
Description: Schooner (1955) says that it "used to be found in magnificent specimens at the small cut above the main part of the Strickland Quarry. Water from the adjacent Schoonmaker shaft, in flowing over a ledge of schist, decomposed the sulphides and mica, producing this hydrosoluble sulphate in limited abundance when the pumping was halted for a while." In Schooner (1958) he elaborates: "At times, especially when water was being drained down over the ledges, the author saw several square feet of rock surface completely covered with reniform pickeringite. Even leaves and twigs, on the ground below, were incrusted. The color was frequently pure white, and the material was solid enough to obtain in sizeable pieces. A peculiar mass, over an inch thick, was found under an overhanging ledge in the principal part of the quarry."
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: massive, fine-grained alteration of spodumene
Colour: grayish shades of green, yellow, purple
Description: Multi-colored alteration pseudomorphs after spodumene, with a soapy feel, like serpentine. Schooner (1958) elaborates: "During the active period at the locality, a bewildering array of 'pinite' specimens were encountered. They were of all colors and resembled jade, petrified wood, and other things. Many were perfect pseudomorphs after the original mineral."
Formula: Al6(PO4)2(PO3OH)2(OH)8 · 4H2O
Description: Schooner (circa 1985) writes that "A Boston Mineral Club list of Strickland quarry minerals, dating from about 1940, describes planerite as green crusts on fractured quartz. Several pieces of that material, resembling variscite, were collected at the time; unfortunately, none is now available for study."
Formula: (Cs,Na)2(Al2Si4O12) · 2H2O
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Colour: colorless
Description: In the lithium mineral zone of the western pegmatite. Masses and cleavages to as much as a foot in length and six to eight inches in width have been recovered. It is closely associated with spodumene crystals, rubellite and other colored lithium tourmalines, caesium beryl, lepidolite, montebrasite, blue and white cleavelandite, and smoky quartz. It has a platy structure or it occurs as fractured masses, the fractures often being filled by dull white chalcedony.
ⓘ 'Polylithionite-Trilithionite Series'
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: tabular books, micaceous to globular
Colour: purple
Description: Common associated minerals are cleavelandite, quartz, spodumene, montebrasite, elbaite, microlite, cassiterite. Usually granular, but books to a few inches across occur.
Formula: Mn3+(PO4)
Habit: encrustation
Colour: purple
Description: Rare alteration of lithiophilite. Parent lithiophilite has Mn/Mn + Fe = 0.97 (Moore, 2000).
Formula: FeS2
Localities: Reported from at least 8 localities in this region.
Habit: cuboctahedral to pyritohedral, cubic
Colour: brassy
Description: In the pegmatite, typically as small crystals typically <1/2-inch, commonly with a red hematite patina, in pockets with K-rich albite of the mineralized cleavalandite-quartz intermediate zone, associated with fluorite, calcite, micro-quartz, cookeite, bertrandite. Some altered to goethite. In Alpine-cleft type openings in the host schist of the Collins Hill Formation as aggregates of staggered cubes to 5mm on albite with chlorite and anatase.
Formula: A2Nb2(O,OH)6Z
Localities:
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Colour: yellow
Description: Bruce Jarnot did find and confirm pyrochlore from the Hale Quarry. The single specimen was an aggregate of tapiolite crystals about 0.5 inches that had altered 50% to pyrochlore. It resembled a hard yellow marble that, when split, showed the remains of tapiolite xls in the center. The IDs were made by EDX (element ratios) and X-ray unit crystal pattern.
ⓘ 'Pyrochlore Group var. Uranpyrochlore (of Hogarth 1977)'
Formula: (Ca,U,Ce)2(Nb,Ti,Ta)2O6(OH,F)
Description: Specimen in Andrew Kruegel collection identified by SEM-EDS.
Formula: Mn4+O2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: No pyrolusite dendrite or staining in a granite pegmatite in the world has been verified as pyrolusite. The name was a mistake in the nineteenth century which has been widely publicized. See "manganese oxides" for description.
Formula: Fe1-xS
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: massive
Colour: reddish metallic
Description: Massive concentrations in quartz in the host Collins Hill Formation and as inclusions in diopside in calc-silicate units within.
Formula: SiO2
Localities: Reported from at least 19 localities in this region.
Habit: trigonal prisms
Colour: colorless to pale grey, black, light brown, pink, yellow
Description: Besides the ubiquitous massive material in all zones, large, distorted and rough pocket crystals, clear to smoky, sometimes gemmy, are known from the quartz-cleavelandite intermediate zone. These crystals are overgrowths on earlier fragmented quartz with "healed" faces and are commonly coated with albite, cookeite or fragments of matrix and included with white, acicular, hollow cavities of a former unknown mineral. Glassy micro-crystals associated with K-rich albite, cookeite, micas, bertrandite in secondary crystallizations.
Formula: SiO2
Habit: scepters
Colour: purple
Description: As scepter overgrowths on pocket milky quartz crystals.
Formula: SiO2
Colour: white
Fluorescence: pale yellow-white
Description: filling fractures in pollucite masses. As "snowflake" inclusions in pollucite.
Formula: SiO2
Description: Schooner (1958): "Citrine, of fine gem quality, was formerly found at the Strickland Quarry, and a few stones were facetted from it... evidently the “topaz” which some people say was taken from there."
Formula: SiO2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: elongated prismatic with rhombohedral terminations
Colour: white
Description: Smaller pocket crystals are often the milky variety.
Formula: SiO2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: large distorted crystals and delicate elongated micro-crystals
Colour: colorless
Description: Large blocky, distorted crystals that are overgrowths on earlier fragmented quartz can be colorless, though they are typically smoky. In vugs with secondary minerals such as K-rich albite, bertrandite, micas, cookeite, etc., it occurs as delicate, glassy, doubly-terminated microcrystals sometimes in spindly aggregates.
Formula: SiO2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: massive
Colour: rosy
Description: Not very common, most rosy material turned out to be morganite beryl.
Formula: SiO2
Localities: Reported from at least 6 localities in this region.
Habit: distorted prismatic crystals typically as overgrowths on earlier fragmented quartz
Colour: gray to light brown, black
Description: Magnificent clear and smoky crystals, up to at least a foot in length, and almost as broad came from many large pockets. These commonly distorted crystals are mostly overgrowths of earlier fragmented quartz and show complex "healed" faces and inclusions of fragmented bits of albite, and secondary minerals like cookeite, K-rich albite, fluorapatite and and an acicular mineral that later dissolved leaving voids filed by albite and/or cookeite. Much gem material was produced including black cairngorm.
Formula: (Mn2+,Fe2+)3(PO4)2 · 3H2O
Habit: micro-crystals
Colour: dark red
Description: Rare micro-crystals in altered lithiophilite may be this typical alteration product (Schooner, circa 1985).
Formula: MnCO3
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: CaMn3Mn[Si5O15]
Description: Turned out to be lithiophilite.
Formula: TiO2
Habit: massive
Colour: very dark red-brown
Description: Massive grains in almandine coticule found in the host metamorphic rocks around the pegmatite. Micro grains as an accessory in these rock. Raman spectroscopy confirmation by Paul Bartholomew, U. New Haven. Also small crystalline masses scattered in magnesio-hornblende and grossular calc-silicate rock from the host Collins Hill Formation.
Formula: YFe3+Nb2O8
Localities:
Hale-Walker prospects, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Localities:
Appletree Lane, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Formula: Ca(WO4)
Habit: tiny grains
Fluorescence: bright bue-white
Description: Schooner says he found it as tiny fluorescing specks in granular orange-fluorescing "wollastonite" with very tough quartz in the schist which adjoined the pegmatite.
Formula: NaFe2+3Al6(Si6O18)(BO3)3(OH)3(OH)
Localities: Reported from at least 13 localities in this region.
Habit: elongated prisms
Colour: black
Description: Typically as large subhedral prisms in pegmatite matrix and as small scattered crystals in contacting schist. Can reach several inches in cross-section. Some concentrically overgrown by blue-green and olive-green elbaite. Schooner (1958) reports: "Enormous black crystals, occasionally well developed, were encountered in considerable profusion during the operation of the quarry in 1952 and 1953. They were embedded in cleavelandite, with manganapatite and spodumene; the point of origin in the pegmatite was a tunnel, perhaps two hundred feet below the surface."
Formula: Fe3+AsO4 · 2H2O
Habit: encrustation
Colour: green
Description: Schooner (1955) says "a small piece of badly weathered arsenopyrite had a bright green coating of the mineral".
Formula: FeCO3
Habit: curved rhombohedra
Colour: tan
Description: Microscopic crystals with fluorite and analcime, SEM-EDS analysis shows some Mn impurity. This is consistent with Schooner's claim that rhodochrosite from altered lithiophilite grades into siderite.
Formula: Al2(SiO4)O
Formula: Mn2+3Al2(SiO4)3
Localities: Reported from at least 7 localities in this region.
Habit: massive to trapezohedral
Colour: orange-red
Description: 2017 SEM-EDS analysis of an orange-red crystal in fine-grained greenish muscovite confirms the identification. Orange colored crystals are likely spessartine, however, as there is much almandine and likely both a chemical and color gradation between these two species here, each suspected crystal may need analysis to confirm the identification.
Formula: ZnS
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Colour: black
Formula: LiAlSi2O6
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: elongated prisms
Colour: exterior tan to pale grey, interior white to lavender
Fluorescence: lavender-pink in SW, orange-pink in LW
Description: Tons of fragmented crystals were in the dumps, many well terminated. Most crystals etched on the exterior to a "woody" appearance, some crystals altered to pinite. The interior of good crystals is white to lavender and translucent with some rare gem material. Schooner (1958) says that "Rather large crystals, a yard long and a foot wide, were abundant when the locality was active. During the last period of operation, in l954, a great deal of the mineral was uncovered in the lower east wall of the main pit. Part of a wedge-shaped vein of lithium minerals was composed of virtually solid white spodumene. Green and lavender material was also present there, associated with pollucite, amblygonite, lepidolite, and cleavelandite. Most of the green and some of the pink has a good orange fluorescence and a vivid and long sustained orange phosphorescence under short-wave ultra-violet light. Cleavages are still found in the old dumps. Several fine specimens of translucent to semi-transparent light purple kunzite have been secured in recent years."
Formula: LiAlSi2O6
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: elongated prisms
Colour: lavender
Fluorescence: pale orange-pink
Description: Found in the cores of normal spodumene
Formula: Ca5(SiO4)2(CO3)
Colour: bluish-gray
Description: Schooner (circa 1985): "In some of the wollastonite pods at the Strickland quarry, bluish-gray spurrite occurs as very thin layers with grossularite and larnite. X-ray confirmation was obtained from a number of samples. Spurrite also is mixed with the granular wollastonite and its embedded minute gehlenite crystals; only X-ray peaks revealed its presence in that material." Studied by Waldemar T. Schaller of USGS.
Formula: Fe2+2Al9Si4O23(OH)
Localities:
Unnamed building stone quarry, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: Mn2+Fe3+2(PO4)2(OH)2 · 8H2O
Colour: pale yellow
Description: According to Schooner (circa 1985) occurs as tiny yellow crystals in altered hureaulite. Specimens of hureaulite from the dump bulldozed in 1984 show small areas of a yellow alteration, possibly stewartite. So far an SEM-EDS analysis (2017) of yellow grains in lithiophilite have proven to be natrophilite.
Formula: M6-7[Al8-9Si27-28O72] · nH2O
Habit: elongated tabular micro-crystals
Colour: yellow
Formula: S8
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: (Mn,Fe)(Ta,Nb)2O6
Localities:
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: Mistake for columbite-tantalite. See USGS PP 225.
Formula: Mn2+Ta2O6
Localities:
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: subhedral; highly modified, flattened, and distorted
Colour: red-brown, reddish orange
Description: occurs as small browish-red to reddish-orange, and orange-brown, highly modified, flattened, and distorted crystals to about two inches in length. They are often partially or completely embedded in spodumene cleavelandite, lepidolite, or quartz. A characteristic occurrence is as small crystals grown upon or near to the outer surfaces of spodumene crystals, or partially enclosed within them but projecting above the edges of the spodumene crystals. The flattened tantalite crystals look very much like flattened crystals of zircon but an x-ray powder photograph revealed that they are tantalite.
Formula: (Fe,Mn)(Ta,Nb)2O6
Description: Bruce Jarnot did find and confirm tapiolite from the Hale Quarry. There were two specimens, one a complex crystal group (about 0.5 inches) and the other a similar size group that had altered 50% to pyrochlore. It resembled a hard yellow marble that, when split, showed the remains of tapiolite xls in the center. The IDs were made by EDX (element ratios) and X-ray unit crystal pattern.
Formula: (Th,U)(SiO4)1-x(OH)4x
Colour: pale yellow
Description: Specimen in the collection of Andrew Kruegel identified by SEM-EDS.
Formula: CaTi(SiO4)O
Localities:
Carr Brook Waterfall, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Appletree Lane, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: tabular
Colour: tan to yellow
Description: little tan or yellow crystals (Schooner 1958)
Formula: Al2(SiO4)(F,OH)2
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Colour: white
Description: At least one recognizable crystal about 5 cm long was collected by Richard Schooner. Confirmed by Bruce Jarnot, Anthony Albini, and Harold Moritz. Schooner (1958) states that: "There have been reports of topaz...but most evidently refer to the gem quality citrine quartz (the 'topaz' of commerce) which was produced many years ago. Nevertheless, John Tweedy, former operator of the locality, told the author that his company geologist had identified the mineral there in 1953." Later, in Schooner (circa 1985) he says: "Topaz was supposedly verified from the Strickland quarry, at Yale University, a decade ago. It must be quite rare."
Formula: Cu(UO2)2(PO4)2 · 12H2O
Localities:
Hale Quarry (Andrews Quarry; Glastonbury Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Case Quarries, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: A D3G6 (T6O18)(BO3)3X3Z
Localities: Reported from at least 6 localities in this region.
Habit: elongated prisms, acicular, capillary, asbestiform
Colour: black, greens, blue, pink, lavender, gray, white
Fluorescence: pink variety fluoresces blue
Description: See descriptions of elbaite, foitite, and schorl for details. In the mineralized portion of the cleavelandite-quartz intermediate zone, associated with much K-rich albite and elbaite, occurs much secondary acicular to capillary tourmaline, some of it forming asbestiform mats. Some of it has distinct color and is likely elbaite, but much is white to black and could be other species. Analyses are lacking.
Formula: A(D3)G6(T6O18)(BO3)3X3Z
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Formula: A(D3)G6(T6O18)(BO3)3X3Z
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
ⓘ 'Tourmaline var. Watermelon Tourmaline'
Formula: A(D3)G6(T6O18)(BO3)3X3Z
Habit: unterminated, elongated prisms
Colour: pink core, pale green rims
Description: In the mineralized core zone.
Formula: ◻Ca2Mg5(Si8O22)(OH)2
Habit: needles
Colour: white
Description: Microcrystals in voids in amphibolite with adularia.
Formula: LiFe2+PO4
Formula: Mn2+2(PO4)F
Habit: irregular massive nodules
Colour: red-brown
Description: Schooner (circa 1985) reports: "Rich specimens, some dark red, garnet-like, with a conchoidal fracture, up to an inch across, were collected by the author on the old dump bulldozed in 1984. X-ray study confirmed the identity. Some of the triplite is altered to hureaulite, occurring as vugs of tiny crystals. It may be surrounded by white or tan fluorapatite, very fine-grained."
References:
Formula: UO2
Localities: Reported from at least 8 localities in this region.
Habit: octahedral to irregular grains
Colour: black
Description: Easily identified by its association with colorful secondary mineralization. Schooner (1955) states that: "crystals, of excellent form, ranging up to a quarter of an inch in diameter were obtained from near the surface of Collins Hill, during the early years [around 1920] of the Strickland Quarry. Wesleyan University, in neighboring Middletown, has many fine specimens. The crystals are octahedral, with cubic modifications." See http://www.mindat.org/photo-626775.html. Columbite-(Fe) and sphalerite were associated.
Formula: Ca(UO2)2(SiO3OH)2 · 5H2O
Localities: Reported from at least 6 localities in this region.
Description: fine examples
Formula: Ca19Fe3+Al4(Al6Mg2)(◻4)◻[Si2O7]4[(SiO4)10]O(OH)9
Colour: brown
Description: Possible component of the calc-silicate units in the host Collins Hill Formation. A single tiny brown potential vesuvianite crystal was noted on a wollastonite(?) specimen.
Formula: Fe2+Fe2+2(PO4)2 · 8H2O
Habit: thin film
Colour: blue
Description: Reported as thin blue films on weathered lithiophilite. This is unlikely given the absence of Fe in that mineral here. Lithiophilite is commonly associated with blue elbaite here, which could be mistaken for vivianite.
Formula: NaAl3(PO4)2(OH)4 · 2H2O
Description: Schooner (circa 1985) reports that "Wardite and wavellite occurred in a fine-grained replacement of natromontebrasite from the Strickland quarry. The rest of the sample was quartz. X-ray study revealed their existence." Natromontebrasite was discredited in 2007 as a mixture of wardite, montebrasite and lacroixite, which were all documented here by the study Schooner mentions.
Formula: Mn2+Sn4+Ta2O8
Localities:
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Walden Gem Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Habit: tapered, elongated prisms
Colour: dark brown with iridescence
Description: Fantastic tapered crystals, 2 to 6 cm long, translucent and sometimes showing a little iridescence. Typically in cleavelandite, associated with cassiterite, foitite grading into elbaite, gobbinsite and quartz. Long misidentified as cassiterite or tantalite-(Mn) (going back to even 1935 - see Jarnot (2011)) and too bad as it was not "discovered" until 1963 in Canada and Australia. Strickland could have been the type locality had it been recognized as a new mineral when the quarry was active. Schooner (circa 1990) summarizes its identification:
A decade ago, the author found a loose 4 inch mass of montebrasite, studded with sharply formed little dark brown crystals, on one of the Strickland quarry dumps. These were tentatively classified as manganotantalite, despite visual differences. The X-ray pattern was later rechecked, with wodginite in mind, and the fit was close enough to warrant a spectrographic test, which showed the presence of tin. Pete J. Dunn and Peter Cerny have since made probe studies of the material. The original mass was broken into several rich specimens. The wodginite is in equant crystals, transparent under magnification, with a few little tabular amber crystals of manganotantalite. This material obviously represented only part of a concentration of wodginite in montebrasite. Several years ago, Bruce Jarnot encountered a small cleavelandite boulder, on the long narrow dump along the western edge of the hill, yielding maybe a dozen superb thumbnails of sharp, euhedral, reddish-black wodginite crystals, of a pyramidal aspect, up to almost an inch. These, too, were thought to be manganotantalite, until X-ray study proved them to be wodginite. At that point, the author became suspicious of an iridescent brown mineral, embedded in columnar green elbaite, collected around 1950. The X-ray pattern shows it to be wodginite, in yet another habit. Obviously, the mineral has been mistaken for other things!
Formula: Ca3(Si3O9)
Habit: granular, bladed
Colour: white
Fluorescence: orange
Description: Found by Schooner in 1953 and 1954, and reported in Schooner (1955): "It is pure white in color, and granular massive in form. Fairly large pieces were obtained from the cores of lenticular quartz-actinolite-grossularite-diopside "horses" [pods] in biotite schist, from near the pegmatite. The mineral is photosensitive, turning brown and ugly if exposed to sunlight for very long. It is faintly fluorescent, in a pale orange tint, and strongly phosphorescent, in a brighter shade of the same color, under short-wave ultra-violet radiations". In Schooner (1958) there is more information: "W. T. Schaller, of the U. S. Geological Survey, made an optical study of this wollastonite, to determine its manganese content through a correlation with the refractive index…which was 1.632, indicating about one percent of iron and manganese oxides." Followed by this passage in Schooner (circa 1985): "Waldemar T. Schaller studied samples submitted by the author. The wollastonite, with tiny embedded tan gehlenite crystals, and occasional light yellow crystals of grossularite, occupies the centers of a few pods, surrounded by concentric zones of fine-grained tan grossularite, white quartz, and greenish diopside. Spurrite, larnite, vesuvianite, and calcite are rarely associated. Spurrite may, indeed, be mixed, granularly, with wollastonite. Small bladed crystals of wollastonite are seen on a few specimens."
Formula: (Zn,Fe)S
Description: Speculation by Schooner.
Formula: (Zn,Fe)S
Description: Speculation by Schooner.
Formula: Y(PO4)
Localities:
Andrews Quarry (old Hale Quarry; Grandfather Andrews Quarry), Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Pelton's Quarry, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ? (more information)
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Description: the original reference by Schairer (1931) is non-locality specific: "Rarely found as very perfect crystals in the pegmatite at the feldspar quarries of Glastonbury and Portland."
Habit: micaceous
Colour: golden-brown, purplish-grey
Description: Found in the cleavelandite-quartz intermediate zone. Schooner (circa 1985) reports that "X-ray and spectrographic study, quite recently, have identified rich specimens, consisting of coarse golden-brown aggregates with zoned elbaite-schorl tourmaline. It can also be purplish-gray."
Formula: Zr(SiO4)
Localities: Reported from at least 6 localities in this region.
Habit: bipyramids
Colour: grey-brown
Fluorescence: yellow
Description: Small crystals scattered through all zones except the quartz core.
Formula: Zr[(SiO4),(OH)4]
Localities: Reported from at least 6 localities in this region.
Habit: short prismatic, parallel groups
Colour: brown or black
Description: Schooner (1955) says that: "crystals are of small size. Parallel groups are often found in cleavelandite and smoky quartz, and other matrices include manganapatite, microcline, lithiophilite, and various mixtures. The crystals have such short prisms that they resemble distorted dodecahedrons, probably being mistaken for opaque garnets by some collectors." The size rarely exceeds 1/4 inch.
Formula: (CaCa)(AlAlAl)O[Si2O7][SiO4](OH)
Localities:
Schoonmaker Mine, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA