New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

Tasmania is an exotic and storied island located in the southern hemisphere, an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is a beautiful and wild place where nearly 45% of its lands are protected nature reserves, national parks, and World Heritage Sites. Just over half a million people call this place home.

In 2000, the neon orange-red colored lead chromate mineral Crocoite (PbCrO4 ) was named the Tasmanian State Mineral. Crocoite is a soft mineral with a Mohs hardness of 2.5–3 forming prismatic crystals in the monoclinic crystal system.

In 2012, an unprecedented crocoite crystal exposure was discovered in the Adelaide Mine by Adam Wright and Bruce Stark. That same year, I was contracted to collect this feature, the Red River find. Over the next two years, specimens of crocoite, the likes of which had never before been seen, started to be produced in abundance for a hungry world mineral collecting market.

This presentation will expound on and continue the story of this historic discovery through to its conclusion, a story shared on the Internet through the Friends of Minerals Forum website hosted by Jordi Fabre. Two reports have been offered on this site’s Exceptional Finds board thus far…
Offered in 2012, I first presented: CROCOITE: A Huge New Pocket From The Adelaide Mine, Dundas, Tasmania, Australia (http://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=2692).

As mining continued into the epic Red River void, another report of our activities was offered: 2013, an Update...CROCOITE! A Huge New Pocket From The Adelaide Mine can be found here: (http://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=3182).

This report culminated in a video presentation shot by BlueCap Productions of Bruce Stark and I recovering a tenacious specimen from the Red River’s hanging wall which has been posted to YouTube at: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_0noXIhIGg).

Further, new updated information and photographs will be shared to bring the listening audience up to speed with regard to the current collecting conditions and production being recovered from Tasmania’s world famous Adelaide Mine.