I’ve posted the fourth in a series of updates with superb specimens from John White’s collection.

I’ve added some great new specimens from famous Wasson’s Bluff, Nova Scotia in this new Red Chabazite Update.

I’ve posted beautiful new natrolite specimens in this Mont Saint-Hilaire Update. These are from a relatively recent pocket – they are great crystals with sharp, glassy pyramid faces and they fluoresce bright green under short-wave ultraviolet light.

I’ve posted the third in a series of updates with excellent quartz specimens from John White’s collection.

I’ve added excellent new specimens from Cape Split in this Nova Scotia Update. Over the past three years, a pocket system at Cape Split has sporadically yielded excellent, distinctive specimens of several minerals, most notably the groups and hemispheres (and even balls) of natrolite crystals, associated with sharp analcime crystals, and lustrous brownish stilbite crystals. This group of specimens represents some of the nicest pieces recovered from these finds.

I’ve posted some great chabazite specimens from Wasson’s Bluff in this Nova Scotia Update. This is the classic Canadian locality for chabazite, including the deep-coloured ones that were once known as “acadialite”, and many of the specimens in this update are this colour (there are also very fine cabinet specimens of the nice mid-orange colour.)

Super new selenites – sharp, lustrous, transparent, textbook crystals, like crystal models. These crystals are fluorescent with vivid hourglass patterns, and they are also phosphorescent.

Excellent new specimens from Mont Saint-Hilaire. The specimens in this update are from finds 1988-2007. This selection of specimens represents several different unique finds, including beautiful serandites, terminated elpidite crystals, twinned rhodochrosite, sodalite var. hackmanite, narsarsukite, leucophanite, analcime and more.

I’ve added a new Howlite Update with beautiful sharp crystals of howlite. Howlite is not a rare mineral. However, display-quality crystals of howlite are rare. To date, there is only one known locality, on the shoreline of Bras D’Or Lake, near Iona, Victoria Co., Cape Breton Island. This update includes some gorgeous specimens.

The specimens in this update are truly special – they are the top quality Thunder Bay amethyst. These specimens are from the collection of David Nicklin, representing the best of all specimens he and his son Ian mined at the Diamond Willow Mine over a period of over 30 years. They are absolutely remarkable. We don’t expect to be able to see a lot like this again in the future.

Just north of Lake Superior, the Thunder Bay District of Ontario is world famous for its distinctive, ancient amethyst crystals. Thunder Bay amethyst is remarkable for its variety – it occurs in all shades of purple and it is often further coloured by red hematite inclusions, the classic look of Thunder Bay amethyst. It is a long journey to the amethyst mines of the Thunder Bay District, and hopefully this article will bring this beautiful region, its history, geology, mines and collecting experience a bit closer!

This Yukon Update features selected classy specimens of uncommon minerals that are hard to obtain, including kulanite, gormanite, and goyazite, as well as lazulite and wardite. These pieces are from the heyday of famous specimen discoveries at Rapid Creek, in the Dawson Mining District, Yukon, in the 1980s and 1990s.