[Rockhounds] when volcanoes drop bombs: giant crystal payload

[DonH]

Pmodreski at aol.com wrote:

>  
> In a message dated 8/1/2007 8:06:12 AM Mountain Daylight Time,  
> nospam at orerockon.com writes:
> 
> It's  sunstone, it is from a well know collecting site on a cinder 
> cone in WY  just over the ID border.
> 
> Ah, but sunstone is a descriptive term, is it sanidine or orthoclase?   
> Probably orthoclase.  Don, the master feldsparologist, will certainly find  out.


Holy cow, what a way to start the morning.  OK, in sum, I can say the 
gentleman definitely found it in Idaho; so perhaps there is more than 
one volcanic field with this type of formation?  I never had volcanology 
so I don't know if this could have blown that far from WY.

The geologist who is working with these kept calling them plagioclase. 
But there is no point in speculation or pontification until we get a 
chance to look at them.  He had some of them prepped for mass 
spectrometry so I suppose he'll know the trace elements and REEs soon.
I will try to x-ray them today but maybe someone else is using the 
instrument.


Don