GG: Mineralogical Society: Special Interest Groups

Registration costs £20 per person, £10 for those under sixteen years of age. For Rockwatch delegates, including parents, the cost £10 each.

Register online or by means of this downloadable form. It is recommended that groups, including families, use the downloadable form as it is only possible to register one person at a time by online means. Members of Rockwatch should go to Rockwatch events page in order to avail of the special Rockwatch rate for attendance. Please contact Kevin Murphy if you have any queries about registration.

The aim is to provide a day of short talks which will appeal to anyone with an interest in minerals and gems, including members of all four organizations. Students from schools and universities are welcomed and members of Rockwatch, in particular, are encouraged to participate.

The day will commence with coffee + registration at 10.00 am followed by the first talk at 10.30 am. Lunch will be followed by some displays with more talks in the afternoon.

The introduction deals with the occurrence of gold in Britain in order to concentrate on two important locations in Scotland. That is, the Lowther Hills in the Southern Uplands and the Strath of Kildonan in Sutherland. (Current gold mining in Central Scotland will be summarised ever so briefly.)

The overall emphasis will be historical. The first part will consider the recovery of gold for the Scottish crown and other jewels, and the importance of local knowledge being passed from generation to generation.

In contrast, the second portion of the talk will explain how Robert Nelson Gilchrist discovered gold in the Strath of Kildonan in December 1868 and sparked the Scottish gold rush. Some valuable artefacts have survived, but best of all, today's landowner allows gold washing in the Kildonan Burn.

Dr R M Callender is a Fellow of The Royal Photographic Society and on retirement from Unilever Research in 1990, decided to combine two enthusiasms by applying his photography to gold prospecting.

As a schoolboy in wartime Lanarkshire, Ron Callender's interest had been stirred when history lessons alluded to the local gold that had been used in fashioning the Scottish Crown in the reign of King James IV of Scotland. After completing National Service, he made the subject his leisure-time interest and began washing gold in the Scottish rivers.

Since then, he has visited the important locations of the world's gold rushes and participated in world gold-panning championships in Finland, Italy, Sweden, California, Scotland and France.

Peter J. Treloar, Richard Giddens and Mohamed Chaudhry, Electron Microscope Unit, Faculty of Science, Kingston University,

One of the key tensions in analyzing rocks and minerals is how destructive the analysis should be. Crushing a rock or mineral and then putting it into solution prior to analysis might yield excellent data, yet leave no sample remaining. Although not a problem when analyzing a basalt, it becomes more such when analyzing a precious gemstone of family heirloom. A second key tension relates to how precise or accurate (not the same thing) that we need the analysis to be.

In terms of the coloured gemstones such as sapphire, ruby, tanzanite and emerald their colour is determined by trace elements of one or more chromophores such as V, Cr or Fe. How can we easily determine the concentrations of the chromophores without damaging the stone? The chemistry of many stones also carries a calling card as to where they came from. Locality may add to value or, in the case of conflict stones, detract from it.

For the analyst the trick is to generate quantitative analytical data without damaging the stone. Modern instrumentation provides a number of solutions to his dilemma, albeit with varying degrees of precision. Portable XRF techniques will provide data but these are not robustly accurate. However, the use of energy dispersive micro-analytical techniques using a modern variable vacuum scanning electron microscope (SEM) provides a robust approach to precise and accurate quantitative data. This does not need old fashioned coating of sample with carbon or gold to conduct current away. Even though retaining a vacuum in the specimen chamber scatters and attenuates X-rays it is possible to balance specimen current against vacuum in order to provide robust analytical data.

In this presentation we report two data sets generated using uncoated samples in a variable vacuum SEM. The first is an unconstrained variable vacuum analysis of a corundum bearing rock from Greenland. The results are, given that we broke all the ground rules, surprisingly good. The second reports an undergraduate dissertation which balanced a variety of instrument parameters in order to generate best quality results against know samples. These data demonstrate that it is possible to generate precise and accurate data from gemstones without prior preparation or sample damage. In many way, this could be the way forward for the industry.

Peter Treloar is the Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology in the Centre for Earth and Environmental Sciences Research at Kingston University, Surrey. He developed his life long fascination in mineral chemistry while carrying out a NERC-funded research fellowship in Jim Long’s lab in Cambridge and has worked with electron micro-beam instrumentation ever since. He is the current course director of the unique Kingston University degree in Gemology and Applied Mineralogy. He currently spends much of his time working with companies in the mineral deposits industry, especially in precious metals.

In 2007 the Diamond Light Source opened its doors to external experimenters for the first time. Diamond is the UK's new national synchrotron. It produces radiation across a broad spectrum from infra-red right through to high energy X-rays, that is used in a variety of experiments covering the all the scientific disciplines.

This talk will explain how a synchrotron works and highlight some of the science performed at Diamond in understanding protein behaviour, following the chemical synthesis of novel materials and explaining the behaviour of materials under extreme conditions, such as those found in the lower mantle. It will also cover the differences between Diamond and other particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at Cern.

Fred did a natural sciences BA at Clare College, Cambridge, then studied for PhD under John Evans at Southampton University in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. After post-doctoral research in surface science with Brian Hayden at Southampton and in geochemistry with Richard Pattrick and Dave Garner at Manchester University, Fred obtained a position as a beamline scientist at the SRS, Daresbury. Migrating around the x-ray spectroscopy beamlines, he was at Daresbury for nearly 11 years. In 2005 he became principal beamline scientist of the microfocus spectroscopy beamline at the Diamond Light Source, which started operating in 2007. In 2008 Fred was awarded a visiting chair by the University of Kent.

The micro-CT technique will be outlined, and brief (30-second) video clips will illustrate the potential for non-destructive, 3-dimensional representations of mineral specimens, drill core and rock slices. Samples shown will include Fe-Ni metal in a meteorite sample (pallisite from Chile); pentlandite and Cr-spinel (rock slice from Rum, Scotland); gold in smectite (drill core from Patagonia), and gold in calcite (hand specimen from Hope’s Nose, UK ).

Current work aims to refine scanning and threshold parameters for different matrices; develop measurement techniques, establish limitations of the technique and investigate potential mineralogical, and Earth Science applications.

Formerly of the Natural History Museum, London; BSc and PhD in Geochemistry from the University of London; 30 years in the Department of Mineralogy, NHM, London

Rubies on the market today: where they are coming from, ways in which they are being treated and how to detect these treatments

Doug entered the jewellery trade in 1979, in the manufacturing and repairing side of the industry. He moved into the retail sector, working for various companies before managing a shop in his home town of Torquay. In 1992 he moved to London to become the Education Executive at Gem-A the Gemmological Association of Great Britain.

Doug passed his Diploma in Gemmology in 1983 and began teaching evening classes at a college in Exeter, Devon, two years later. He gained his Gem Diamond Diploma in 1993 and is a European Gemmologist. Doug’s work at Gem-A now involves the development of short courses in all aspects of gemstone knowledge in the UK and around the world, as well as teaching both Gemmology and Diamond Diploma courses.

Organic gem materials – those of plant and animal origin – have been used by mankind since pre-historic times. Examples of worked items have been found that date back about 40.000 years.

The talk will start with a brief description of some of the more common organic gem materials which can be viewed in various departments in the museum.

It will then concentrate in more depth on ambers: where they occur world-wide, and their uses past and present, from Stone Age carvings to modern jewellery. Mention will also be made of some of the treatments and fakes on the market today.

Maggie Campbell Pedersen FGA, ABIPP, specializes in organic gem materials. Her work includes lecturing, identifications, teaching, writing, and constant research into the various aspects of the subject. She has also worked with animal conservation.

Maggie is the author of ‘Gem and Ornamental Materials of Organic Origin’ and editor of ‘Organic Gems’ – the online information centre and archive devoted entirely to this subject. She is at present working on a book on ivories.

Meteorites are messengers from space that provide us with information about the chemical and physical environment of the birth and subsequent history of our Solar System and the bodies it contains. Meteorites from asteroids shed light on these early processes and of subsequent planet-building processes whereas meteorites from Mars and the Moon provide us with the geological history and evolution of larger planetary bodies.

This talk will provide a general overview of the major meteorite types and their different chemical and physical characteristics and what information they hold. I will also discuss some of the phenomena associated with meteorite falls with some recent examples, the controversy over whether there is evidence for life on Mars and the process of how the Natural History Museum acquires meteorites today.

Caroline Smith is the Curator of Meteorites at the Natural History Museum where she is in charge of caring for the UK’s national Meteorite Collection; one of the most important in the world. Her research interests include the mineralogy and petrology of both primitive and evolved meteorites and the light-element stable isotope chemistry of meteorites. Caroline is currently working on projects with both the European and UK Space Agencies to formulate plans for the curation of samples returned from asteroids and Mars in future space missions.

Nature's Treachery: Arsenic in the Bengal basin
William Burgess

Shallow groundwater pumped from tubewells of a few 10s of metres depth in alluvial sediments is the primary water source for the inhabitants of the Bengal Basin. We have recently learned that much of this shallow groundwater contains excessive amounts of naturally-occurring dissolved arsenic, threatening the health of up to 70 million people. The talk will describe what we know about this widespread catastrophe, and steps towards securing safe water suppies for the region.

William Burgess is a Senior Lecturer in Hydrogeology at UCL. His research concerns groundwater flow, solute transport processes and geochemical reactions, and how these interact to govern groundwater quality. He has worked on the problem of arsenic in groundwater of the Bengal Basin for over 10 years. Other interests include fluoride in groundwater in India, and anthropogenic contaminants in the ‘double-porosity’ Chalk aquifer of southern England.

The event will also include the opportunity to talk to the speakers and others about careers in the geosciences and gemmology, and to view the several displays planned for the day, including The Virtual Microscope (Andy Tindle), real microscopes (Leica), Mineral dealers (including Richard Tayler) and others.

Nature's Treasures 3