Vanadinite

Named for Vana dis, old Norse for Freyja, the Nordic Goddess of fertility, wealth, and feminine magic, vanadinite is a must-have mineral for every collector. It has lustrous, fiery orange to red, six-sided crystals that cluster together in intriguing formations. Commonly found in combination with barite, limonite, wulfenite, and galena, vanadinite forms in arid regions like Arizona and New Mexico in the United States, Mexico, and Morocco.
 
Vanadinite is an ore of vanadium, an element that has many industrial applications, and of lead. Most vanadium is used to make ferrovanadium and vanadium pentoxide. Ferrovanadium is a strong, shock- and corrosion-resistant alloy of iron that's added to steel to increase its strength and to prevent rust. Vanadium pentoxide is a compound that's used to fix dye to fabric, to speed up chemical reactions, and to form superconductive magnets when combined with gallium.
 
Metaphysically, vanadinite is believed to promote patience, inner clarity, and the conservation of energy and wealth. It can also help you to define goals and bring order to your life.

Vanadinite: Pb5(VO4)3Cl, lead chlorovanadate
Color: usually bright red to orange; less commonly gray, brown, or yellow
Habit: typically a hexagonal prism with pinacoid termination (flat basal face); rare crystals have a hexagonal pyramid termination; also found as rounded masses and crusts
Hardness: 3
Luster: vitreous to adamantine
Transparency: crystals are transparent to translucent
Cleavage: none
Fracture: conchoidal
Specific gravity: 6.6+ (very heavy for translucent minerals)
Streak: yellowish-white
Other: index of refraction is 2.39 (typically high for lead minerals); specimens from some localities may darken and lose transparency upon prolonged exposure to light

About Building a Fountain

Spring is coming, and it's fountain season! Whether you're building a small, indoor fountain for Feng Shui in your home or office, or a larger fountain for your backyard, here are a few tips that will help the process along:

• You'll need a reservoir (container for holding water), a riser (a rigid platform that will hold your fountain design), an adjustable water pump with flexible tubing, and mortar. We have convenient indoor fountain kits that contain all of these items. In addition, you'll need decorative pieces with which to design your fountain. These can be whatever you want them to be -- rough rock, tumbled rock, shells, slabs, geodes, or anything else you can imagine. Be creative!
• Think of how your elements will fit together. Do a few dry settings (set all the pieces together, including the pump, tubing, and light, without mortaring them in place). This will help you work out any flaws in the design of your fountain. Sometimes it's hard to tell how your water will flow until you've set everything up.
• Make sure your water pump will be easily accessible after your fountain is mortared -- later on this will be important.
• We prefer to use Mama's Mortar with our fountain designs. Mortar is a permanent fixative and takes about 24 hours to cure. If you want to use something with more flexibility, you can substitute clear silicone. With silicone you can pull your design apart even after it has cured.
• Most fountain pumps are adjustable, so you can vary the strength of your water flow. Read more in our Learn More article about adjusting the flow of an indoor fountain pump. If there's no flow at all, you probably have an air bubble caught in the pump -- jiggle the pump a little and the bubble should be dislodged.

Tabletop fountains have long been a staple of good Feng Shui design. In addition to soothing, relaxing sound, fountains help to keep the ch'i (life energy) circulating in a refreshing and invigorating manner, as well as enhancing the "color energy" of your environment. Learn More about the Feng Shui of Fountains.

If you're in New Mexico, you might want to visit us for one of our free fountain building workshops! Our online calendar shows dates for all of our upcoming craft classes.

How to Tell if You've Found a Meteorite

So, you think you've found a meteorite. . . but how can you be sure? Every year, hundreds of people bring us rocks they've found in the desert, wondering if they might be from space. First, we inspect them visually for a few tell-tale signs that they did not form here on Earth:

Weight -- Unusual density is one of meteorites' more characteristic features. Iron meteorites are generally 3.5 times as heavy as Earth rocks of the same size, while stony meteorites are about 1.5 times as heavy. However, iron ores are also exceptionally heavy.

Appearance -- Of all the rocks that fall from the sky, stony meteorites are by far the most common, making up 85-90% of all meteorites. They can be tricky to identify, as they more closely resemble terrestrial rocks than do the iron meteorites. However, if your specimen contains quartz, it is not a meteorite. Quartz is produced on the earth at plate margins; other planetary bodies like asteroids do not have this kind of setting and do not produce quartz crystals.

Meteorites are rarely round or aerodynamically-shaped, and virtually never have a bubbly appearance or small holes in the exterior or interior. The surface of a meteorite is generally black or rusty brown (not shiny silver, unless the fusion crust has completely disintegrated), very smooth and featureless, and has shallow depressions or cavities resembling thumbprints (called regmaglypts, like those you can see in the Canyon Diablo meteorite pictured).

Here are some simple tests you can use to determine if a suspected meteorite is worth sending to a testing laboratory for analysis:

• The first test your potential meteorite will have to pass is the magnetic test. 99% of all meteorites are attracted to a strong magnet on a string (including stony meteorites, which contain 3-30% nickel). However, so are metal artifacts and iron ore. This is a simple test that will rule out tektites and many terrestrial rocks. Keep in mind, though, that exposing a meteorite to a magnet can corrupt or change its natural magnetic field -- possibly destroying research information, if your find is important. If you're concerned about this, use a compass needle to determine if your specimen is magnetic.
• Next, the streak test. Iron ore is the most common meteor-wrong; magnetite (lodestone) is very magnetic, and hematite is mildly magnetic. Fortunately, both of these minerals will leave a distinctive mark on a streak plate. Take your suspected space rock and rub it vigorously on the unglazed side of a ceramic tile (or the underside of your toilet tank cover, if you don't have a tile). If it leaves a grey-black streak (like a lead pencil), what you have is almost certainly magnetite; if the streak is red-brown, you likely have hematite. If there is no streak, your specimen has passed the second test!
• Finally, the most complicated and definitive test you can do in your home -- a test for nickel. All iron meteorites and nearly all stony meteorites contain some nickel; a chemical test for nickel is definitive for meteorites 99% of the time. You should be able to buy all the chemicals you need at a hardware store (though you might need to get dimethylglyoxime from an online source). Be careful! Wearing gloves and goggles, dissolve about 1 gram of your suspected meteorite in heated chloridric acid. Add a few drops of nitric acid, then a few drops of citric acid, then add ammonium hydroxide. Filter the solution if it's cloudy. Then add a few drops of dimethylglyoxime. A nice bright cherry red color will indicate the presence of nickel.

If your rock passes all these tests, there's a good possibility you have a meteorite! Contact your local university, or check online for a reputable testing laboratory. Maybe you've found the next Sikhote-Alin, Gibeon, Nantan, Campo del Cielo, or NWA!

Geology Word Puzzler

What is Venus hair, and does it come from outer space?

Venus hair is the name for needlelike crystals of reddish-brown or yellow rutile, forming tangled swarms of inclusions in quartz.

Rutile is a common accessory mineral, made up of titanium and oxygen. When found within other minerals, the mineral is said to be "rutilated", as in our rutilated quartz points. Rutilated quartz may also be called Venus-hair stone or sagenite. Metaphysically, it is said to intensify the power of the quartz crystal and provide insights into getting to the root of a problem.

We'd love to hear from you! Have questions or comments about the website, or just want to tell us about your latest rockhounding adventure? Email us at we_rock@mamasminerals.com!

Read about rose quartz, geodes, and identification of rocks and minerals in the Fall 2006 issue of RockZ NewZ

Read about rose quartz, geodes, and identification of rocks and minerals in the Summer 2006 issue of RockZ NewZ

Read about fluorite, fluorescent minerals, and cleaning quartz in the Summer 2005 issue of RockZ NewZ.

Read about celestite, pearls, and how to choose the right rock tumbler in the Fall 2004 issue of RockZ NewZ.

Read about malachite, tumbling grit, and how to pan for gold in the Summer 2004 issue of RockZ NewZ.

Read about amethyst, fossil preparation, and field tools for the rockhound in the Spring 2004 issue of RockZ NewZ.

Read about galena, petrified wood, and collecting micrometeorites in the Winter 2003 issue of RockZ NewZ.

Read about iron pyrite, tumbling seaglass, and stony meteorites in the Summer 2003 issue of RockZ NewZ.

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