The goal of this compendium is to bring together in condensed form all published information (and some unpublished) on discoveries of collectible mineral specimens made worldwide since 1960. It is an enormous task, and a work that is perpetually in progress, since new discoveries take place and new publications come out every year. Unlike other general mineralogy references, this one builds on no predecessor compilations; it is entirely extracted bit by bit from original reports and descriptions in the voluminous modern collector literature. Major journals and reference works completely or largely assimilated into the project thus far include the Mineralogical Record, Rocks & Minerals, World of Stones, Magma, Mineralien Welt, Lapis (through 1995), all volumes of ExtraLapis English, the newsletter Mineral News, and over 30 book-length regional mineralogies. Extensive use has also been made of information from other periodical publications, from mineral dealers’ price lists, from websites, and from personal interviews. Of course, a great deal more literature remains to be assimilated, chiefly in languages other than English and German—the next phase of the project.

A worldwide survey of recent mineral discoveries is indeed overdue. When John Sinkankas’s Mineralogy for Amateurs first appeared in 1964, one of its virtues was the wealth of locality data and specimen descriptions he provided for each species. But for the past 50 years, no single work has attempted to provide what Sinkankas did for pre-1960’s mineralogy by the straightforward device of compiling and describing the more recent worldwide discoveries of collector interest.

Moreover, the need for such a work has grown almost exponentially during the last 25 years. During that time, vast tracts of the earth’s surface have been opened up—in central Asia, in the former Soviet Union, in Africa, in Canada—which for physical or economic or political reasons were terra incognita to mineral collectors before 1960. These areas were first explored by geologists, then investigated by professional mineralogists, and finally were exploited by serious seekers after mineral specimens. And the growth of collecting interest has meant that many regions in Mexico, South America, Australia, the United States and Europe have been coaxed to yield more specimens, sometimes from old occurrences and sometimes from new ones. Concurrently, fresh publications have sprung up to keep collectors informed, and many old publications have grown and expanded: periodical journals, books and, more recently, websites have monitored new occurrences closely while at the same time have provided updated, refined accounts of old ones. For all these reasons the period 1960-2009 has been an unprecedentedly rich, busy time for specimen mineralogy.

The crystallized, collector-quality minerals dealt with here are those found as individual crystals measuring 1 cm or more, or which form drusy coatings to a few centimeters wide on matrix. By this definition, massive minerals, strictly ore-value minerals, minerals found in thin sections or polished sections, and minerals solely of interest to the micromounter are excluded, as are all minerals dug before 1960.

Within the entries, citations to source materials are provided in parentheses. For books and for signed articles in periodical journals, the citations are of conventional form: author’s name and date. For website sources, the web address and the year are shown. For oral or unpublished written sources, “pers. comm.,” with the year of the communication, is given.

For the very numerous citations which refer to the “What’s New in Minerals” feature in the Mineralogical Record, wherein reporters have described what they have seen at mineral shows, the year of the relevant volume of the Mineralogical Record is given, followed by the relevant page number; e.g. (1985: 250) means that the reference is to page 250 of the 1985 volume of the Mineralogical Record. The same form of citation is used occasionally to refer to passages in other regular columns of the Mineralogical Record, e.g. Micromounting or Collecting Stories; but signed letters published in the Letters column are cited by authors’ names and dates, as for articles.

For citations from regular columns or editorial pages of other publications, I have used standard abbreviations for the names of the publications, then, in cases of continuously paginated issues within a year, the year and page number; in cases of separately paginated issues, the abbreviation is followed by an issue number, year, and page number. Thus (RM 1978: 69) means page 69 of the 1978 volume of Rocks & Minerals; (SS 3/2004: 50) means page 50 of the third 2004 issue of Schweizer Strahler.

As mentioned, I have made extensive use also of mineral dealers’ printed price lists and catalogs, and of websites, and I have interviewed numerous dealers, collectors, prospectors, professional mineralogists, interested parties, camp followers, angry spouses, etc—these oral sources are not listed in the Bibliography, although they are cited appropriately in the text.

Although I did not initially choose this project for myself—it was assigned to me by Wendell Wilson, who had been toying with the idea of doing it himself for many years—this might well be the place to serve up the cliché: “If I’d known what I was getting into I never would have started.” Yes, this statement feels true in a way, as would also any number of statements beginning with the gloomier clause, “If I live to complete this job…” However, I do not feel gloomy at all: excitement and pleasure continue to spice the whole effort, as they have consistently done throughout the six years since I began. I hope that you will manage to catch a bit of that same spicy whiff, when you dip into this compendium.

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