August 2019 Program Information
August 2019 Program
Our program was presented by a former club member, Scott Duresky, who lives in Charlottesville and has been working on a research project for 7 years.He talked about this research and presented a slide show of some of the minerals he has been studying.
Scott has been working with our president Mike Pabst and Dr. Michael Wise of the Smithsonian to detail photos and information about his specimens.
The program was titled “The Historic Rutherford Mine Pegmatite #2 of Amelia Courthouse, VA Featuring Research with Pyrochlore Supergroup” by Scott Duresky and Michael Pabst.
Scott explained that the mine has been closed for 30 years, and that only by good fortune does he have a collection of minerals that includes some that are found nowhere else in the world.
Scott had visited the mine hundreds of times since he was a high school senior, and is very familiar with the type of minerals found there.
The minerals from this mine are grouped into feldspars, metals, rare earth minerals, and microlites.
The identification of many of the rarest minerals involves using sophisticated equipment that can analyze the chemical make-up of the mineral to include elements and compounds. Tony Nikischer of Excalibur Minerals in Charlottesville works closely with Scott to make sure identifications are accurate. The use of dispersive x-ray spectroscopy can identify composition to the tenth of a percent.
There were 3 pegmatites found at the mine, but #2 has yielded some of the better and rarer specimens. 
Scott showed beautiful photos of cleavelandite, tourmaline, helvine and cassiterite.
He showed some photos of minerals that have only been recently identified due to advances in technology.
Dr. Lance Kearns of JMU has helped identify some of these. Examples of the newly identified minerals included rhabdophane, columbite-Mn, chlorophane, fluorcalciomicrolite and oxycalciomicrolite.
A couple of these are not even on www.mindat.org yet! (this is a site that has thousands of mineral photos, descriptions and locations)
We’d like to thank Scott for sharing this wonderful presentation with us and for all the anecdotes that made for a very interesting and educational evening!