Steven C. Chamberlain

New Danburite Locality Discovered in the Town of Macomb, St. Lawrence County, New York

As an article on the classic danburite locality near Russell, New York, was going to press (Chamberlain, Lupulescu, Bailey 2015), another danburite occurrence was discovered farther to the west, in the Town of Macomb. This locality has similar mineralogy but a very different geological origin than the Russell occurrence. The purpose of this brief article is to report this second occurrence of danburite in St. Lawrence County, New York. ANDREW SUTHERLAND 146 McKinley Court Massena, New York 13662 ajsminerals@hotmail.com

The History and Mineralogy of the Classic Brown Tourmaline Locality, Gouverneur, New York

locality on the present-day Bush farm in the town of Gouverneur, St. Lawrence County, New York, has been the source of some of the world’s finest specimens of fluoruvite. The locality has been known and visited by innumerable collectors for at least 150 years and is still producing fine specimens today. GEORGE W. ROBINSON Department of Geology St. Lawrence University Canton, New York 13617 robinson@mtu.edu

Road-cut Mineral Occurrences of St. Lawrence County, New York, Part 6: The Rock Island Road Cut

cut just north of Gouverneur, New York, that has been examined by countless collectors but has produced relatively few specimens. In 2013, however, a major discovery of crystallized barite produced hundreds of desirable specimens and makes this occurrence noteworthy (Chamberlain, Carlin, and Bailey 2013). THE ROCK ISLAND ROAD CUT STEVEN C. CHAMBERLAIN 3140 CEC Center for Mineralogy New York State Museum Albany, New York 12230 sccham2@yahoo.com

Who's Who in Mineral Names: Berthold Ottens (b. 1942)

Berthold “Bert” Ottens was born in Johnsdorf, Sudetenland (today Czech Republic), in 1942. After earning a diploma as a ceramic engineer and attending business school, he was managing director of Lindner GmbH until 1982. During this time, the company had factories in Germany, Greece, Turkey, and India. From 1983 until he retired in 2007, Ottens was an executive of, or consultant for, a number of German manufacturing companies, including the Hettich Group, Heinze Company, and Arnstädter Werkzeugund Maschinenbau. He is married to Ingrid Vogel Ottens, and they have four children. Ottens began collecting minerals in the Black Forest when he was fourteen years old. Three years later he was living as a trainee in Fichtelgebirge, Germany, and collecting in the local granite quarries. From 1959 to 1982, he spent time each year in the Sonnenblick Range in Rauristal, Austria, climbing and collecting in the steep mountains. From 1966 to 1982, business took him to Chalkis, Greece, and for two months each year he collected minerals in Lavrion and Xanthi. His first business trip to India was in 1978, and he began enthusiastically collecting secondary minerals from the Deccan Traps. Ottens has visited India more than fifty times and has published papers and a book on the minerals of the Deccan Plateau. His first visit to China was in 1995, and he has made sixty-three trips there collecting and acquiring Chinese minerals to sell as a mineral dealer. This has resulted in his becoming one of a very few Western experts on the mineralogy of China. He has published numerous papers and books on Chinese minerals. In his role as an expert on Chinese minerals, he attempted to obtain photographs of the type locality for ottensite for mineral dealer and author Jaroslav Hyrsl. Upon his arrival with a Chinese friend, Ottens took photographs of the outside of the mine and of the miners. On the way back from the mine, they were stopped by police and told that because the mine was being worked by prisoners, all photography was strictly forbidden. Efforts to persuade the police failed, and all the photos were deleted! During the past several decades, Ottens has been a prolific author of papers and books about mineral topics—101 altogether: 20 on India, 68 on China, 2 on Greece, and 11 on other mineral topics. He has also given more than one hunSTEVEN C. CHAMBERLAIN 3140 CEC Center for Mineralogy New York State Museum Albany, New York 12230 sccham2@yahoo.com

Who's Who in Mineral Names: Alexander U. Falster (b. 1952)

Alexander U. Falster was born in Grossviehberg, Bavaria, Germany, in 1952. His interest in geology and mineralogy began at the age of four when he accidentally dropped a concretion from the lower Jurassic delta and found a perfect Amaltheus hawskerense ammonite when it split. Breaking other concretions revealed calcite, pyrite, and sphalerite crystals. His interest in minerals led to growing crystals from sugar and Epsom salt, among others, at an early age. About this time, chemistry started to become a fascination resulting in many successful—and some unsuccessful—experiments. For example, when he used his grandmother’s electric coffee grinder for grinding somewhat reactive components and turned it into a flaming blob of plastic and metal, his irate grandmother went after him and his grandfather with a rolling pin—both managed to escape her wrath! When he was twelve, his beloved grandfather took him on an underground visit to Hagendorf where he saw a large microcline with columbite running through it. This sparked an interest in pegmatites and the early decision to work on them if he ever grew up. As Falster now says, “I did not grow up but ended up working with these minerals anyway.” After emigrating to the United States, Falster spent many years studying and collecting minerals from the pegmatites in Marathon and Florence counties in Wisconsin. He earned an associate’s degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1978. Then he moved south and earned a bachelor’s degree in geology in 1990 and a master’s in geology/mineralogy in 1994, both from the University of New Orleans. Falster spent a lot of time searching for minerals in various parts of the world—a summer in Madagascar, several trips to Namibia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Nicaragua, and many European countries. Through the years, he made important connections with other researchers that led to numerous published collaborative studies in refereed journals. Falster was a scientific research technologist in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New Orleans from 1992 to 2014. Since December 2014, he has been a research technologist at the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in Bethel, Maine. STEVEN C. CHAMBERLAIN 3140 CEC Center for Mineralogy New York State Museum Albany, New York 12230 sccham2@yahoo.com

The Cicero Clay Pits, Onondaga County, New York

For at least fifteen years, concretions in the old clay pits near the village of Cicero in central New York State produced micro-sized specimens of eight common minerals in exquisite crystals. The many habits of calcite and goethite are particularly noteworthy. Material from this locality is familiar to micromounters, and large quantities of specimens were produced. Beyond mention in a few mineral club bulletins, however, nothing about this locality has appeared in the literature. Beginning in 1983, the locality was obliterated by a subdivision of houses. Here we document this interesting locality before the information is lost forever.

Minerals of the Scott Farm Pegmatite near Fine, St. Lawrence County, New York

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Steven C. Chamberlain of specimens from his collection Dr. Steven C. Chamberlain, a collector specializing in the minerals of New York State, is the coordinator of the Center for Mineralogy at the New York State Museum. Dr. Marian Lupulescu is curator of geology at the New York State Museum. Dr. David G. Bailey is an associate professor of geoscience in the geosciences department at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and a research associate at the New York State Museum. Minerals of the Scott Farm Pegmatite