[Rockhounds] attacking quartz without hydrofluoric acid

[Hilmar Krocke]

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On 2007.Dec.26., at  7:27, Tim Fisher wrote:

> I have been thinking of booking Bob Jackson's Rock Candy mine trip  
> (Grand Forks, BC) for a few years now, so out of curiosity,
> is the fluorite from there typically coated with quartz? Would I  
> need this stuff to clean it if I did collect there?
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NO, you would not have to clean it.
You just pick up the fluorite (and barite) that does not have quartz  
on it.
And there is plenty of that. I have been there twice.
On the other hand you can find plates of small quartz crystals on  
fluorite matrix,
drusy quartz on fluorite, and even finer, almost powdery quartz  
sprinkling,
which looks like tiny snow blotches on fluorite. These are really  
pretty.

Hilmar Krocke
Vancouver,  BC