While it’s not exactly a show, readers of this list might be interested
in our Kitchener-Waterloo Club Live Auction:

On WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, at 7:30 PM, our club will have its monthly
meeting, at the Waterloo Community Arts Centre (aka “The Button
Factory”), 25 Regina Street S., Waterloo, right near the downtown.

You don’t have to be a member to attend (but memberships are only $20
for a family, so why not join?)

This meeting is our ANNUAL HOLIDAY LIVE AUCTION. About 40 lots of
minerals, gems, fossils, meteorites, and other hobby-related items will
be auctioned off, and there will also be 10 silent auction items.

Items include a new 2007 mineral wall calendar, an ultraviolet light, a
meteorite, and many minerals, such as a beautiful Elmwood fluorite on
sphalerite.

You can see the auction catalogue here:

http://www.calaverite.com/kwgmc/auction2/

There will also be free pizza and pop. And there will be a holiday
gift exchange: bring a rock-related gift, wrapped, and drop it at the
table, and pick one up.

Jeffrey Shallit

You should not miss any opportunity to collect here because the rutile, lazulite, and pyrophyllite are said to be some of the finest in the world. The collecting area at Graves is huge! There are three main rock types here: quartz-sericite schist, sericite-kyanite-quartz rock (quartzite) and quartz conglomerate. You may still be able to collect rutile, kyanite, lazulite, iridescent hematite, pyrophyllite, pyrite, ilmenite, muscovite, fuchsite, barite, sulfur, blue quartz and quartz crystals with a hematite coating. Don’t forget the micro phosphate and phosphosulfate minerals that can be collected here. Woodhouseite, variscite, strengite, phosphosiderite, cacoxenite, crandallite along with accessory quartz, pyrite, pyrophylite, dickite, jarosite and sulfur crystals.

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BRITISH COLUMBIA

Vernon

Okanagan Opal Inc. (E)
Precious opal
P.O. Box 298
Vernon, BC V1T 6M2
Tel.: (250) 542-1103
Fax: (250) 542-7115
Web site: http://www.opalscanada.com/
MANITOBA

Souris

Souris Agate Pit (E)
Agate, jasper, petrified wood
Souris River Gem Ltd.
P.O. Box 1060
Souris, MB R0K 2C0
Tel.: (204) 483-2561
Fax: (204) 483-2991
Web site: http://www.sourisrockshop.com/

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Kyanite, whose name derives from the Greek word kyanos, meaning blue, is a typically blue silicate mineral, commonly found in aluminium-rich metamorphic pegmatites and/or sedimentary rock. Kyanite is a diagnostic mineral of the Blueschist Facies of metamorphic rocks.

Kyanite is a member of the aluminosilicate series, which includes the polymorph andalusite and the polymorph sillimanite. Kyanite is strongly anisotropic, in that its hardness varies depending on its crystallographic direction. While this is a feature of almost all minerals, in kyanite this anisotropism can be considered an identifying characteristic.

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Submitted story:

Opening a pocket full of Herkimer Diamonds is one of the greatest thrills any rock collector can experience. You are the first person to ever see the contents, and as you pull out and examine the perfect, sparkling, gemmy crystals you experience a joyful feeling that is truly indescribable. Here’s a report on my recent 4-day dig at Treasure Mountain, a fee-digging area in Little Falls, NY.

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Bear Lake Diggings is located near Bancroft, Ontario, Canada. The collecting area is operated by the Bancroft Chamber of Commerce. We dug here in August 1999 and were lucky enough to hit a major pocket, which produced many fabulous, large green apatite crystals, plus some enormous hornblende crystals, and a few titanite crystals to boot. There were books of biotite mica almost sixteen inches across, too.

civic_holiday_pocket

The apatite (fluorapatite, actually) from Bear Lake occurs in rotted calcite veins that snake through a woodsy landscape that’s pockmarked with trenches and eight-foot deep holes. With luck, you can pick up right where someone left off and begin finding great material right off. This is one of the most exciting and productive localities we’ve ever collected in. If you have the chance to collect here, don’t miss it!