Hello from Nevada, USA

[NVdesert]

Hi,

My name is Storm and I am nearly retired electronics engineer and mining geologist living in Nevada. My favorite pass times include mineral collecting, techniques for mineral analysis, and micromineral photography.

Most of the mineral species that I collect are microscopic in size and are best viewed at 40x or higher magnification. Short of a solid visual ID, some sophisticated analytical techniques must be used to properly identify mineral species of this size. Most of these techniques are beyond the reach of the mineral hobbyist. However, I do employ lower-cost methods such as polarizing microscopy, and I have also fabricated fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy apparatus to aid in identification. A goal of my efforts is to see if I can potentially identify new species. Hopeful samples that I have vetted are passed on to professional mineralogists that I know who employ methods such single crystal XRD for detailed analysis.

Over the last few years, I have made many trips to the Colorado Plateau area to collect specimens at both active and inactive uranium mines. In the last decade, largely due to the efforts of a friend of mine, this area has been one of the leading areas of new uranyl and vanadate mineral species discovery. Most of these new species are hydrated and quickly decompose at surface conditions. They are also notoriously difficult to discriminate, sometimes even with advanced techniques. However, I currently employ fluorescence spectroscopy with fair success on the fluorescing uranyl species.

I have recently discovered gamma spectroscopy, noted that it can be relatively economical, and I am investigating whether it could be another tool in my arsenal for differentiating the uranyl species that I collect. I suspect this might not be the case however, I plan to buy some apparatus and experiment with it nonetheless, simply because I find it intriguing.

[Sesselmann]

Hi Storm,

Thanks for giving yourself the intro 👍

Now to make it easier for people to know you, you can log on the UCP (User Control Panel) and either change your login handle to "Storm" or ass a signature to your post like mine.

Good luck with your mineral collection...

Steven