Sorensenite collecting at the base of Kvanefjeld
From the left: Don Yonika,
in red jacket: Herb Yeates.
The fluorescent mineral called sorensenite
is only found in the Illimaussaq complex of Greenland - it's
a single-locality occurrence. The large boulders had tumbled
down from Kvanefjeld mountain and among them could be found sorensenite
but it required a hard work to find any. We saw one area that
had been mined - more sorensenite remained but it was infeasible
to collect it. While the others remained lower down I clambered
up a risky route through the still-wet boulder field until I
began to find previously undiscovered specimens of sorensenite.
Encouraged, I went even higher up the boulders. Then I saw it
- the Mother lode of sorensenite! I scrambled down onto a convenient
flat area and gathered up a dozen or so good-sized pieces, meaning
they were nearly an inch in size....not bad for this rare mineral.
But my prize of the night was a sorensenite that was a few inches
long. They were all terribly fragile pieces but I got them home
just fine. I did call some of the others to come see my discovery.
When they got there, it turned out that I had rediscovered a
"lost location", one they knew about but didn't where
it is. So I was happy on several counts. Lee and Herb did attempt
to extract more sorensenite from "my" spot but it wasn't
very successful. The sorensenite hike was a tricky bit of manuevering
but turned out to be one of the high points of my trip. |