Despite the dire weather warnings for the end of the week issued on radio and TV, the 2009 Sussex Mineral Show went ahead successfully, albeit with a lower attendance of only 521 this year. All of our dealers and speakers battled safely through the weather to Haywards Heath from as far as Cornwall, Scotland and France! We learned later that there had been one local road closure due to flooding around the industrial park and that the Port of Dover had been closed in the face of 100mph winds - good thing that one of our dealers, Christian Montabone, travelled from France via the Channel Tunnel.

This year we had a full house with 42 dealers attending, including several new faces to our Show: we welcomed Ross Whittaker (Cleobury Minerals), Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd, GAC Fossils, Nick Peters, David Binns (Stone Corner, Hastings) and Taranis Minerals (Nicola Holland). The range of specimens available remains very broad, suiting varied interests and pockets. Some dealers had recently returned from Munich and were remarking on how high prices had become there (the pound/euro exchange rate hasn't helped us either!). Nevertheless, there was evidence of some brisk trade with wallets and cheque books being flourished around the rooms during the day.

Looking around at some of the dealers' offerings this year, Keith Corrie displayed several specimens of the salmon pink gemmy crystalline olmiite that had been found from deeper in the N'chwanging mine at Kuruman, South Africa; Keith also had some very aesthetic specimens of tabular hubnerite on a quartz matrix. Ian Bruce (Crystal Classics) seemed to have half a cabinet lit up by brilliant green gemmy South African fluorites, and Ian Jones (Unity Minerals) displayed yet more amazing calcites from China. David & Elizabeth Hacker seemed to have extended their mineral wares beyond the usual fluorites, of particular note were the North of England specular haematites repatriated from Munich. Ralph Sutcliffe's table displayed the usual high quality British mineral specimens that are his trademark: these included several specimens of quite creamy baryte from Wet Grooves Mine in Yorkshire at very reasonable prices.

Cornish minerals were well represented with dealer displays from Nick Carruth and Mike Merry. Mike had a very rich woodwardite specimen which he had collected personally some years ago - as I pondered buying it, the specimen was snapped up by another keen-eyed collector! Carl Bailey (Mountains of Light) had lugged in some more of his awesome museum-sized pieces for sale, while at the other end of the spectrum (size-wise) Richard Tayler catered for the systematic collector with rarer specimens, including, he asked me to say, native elements! Andy Castleton seemed to be doing a roaring trade with his wide range of boxed specimens all at a very reasonable price: and next to him was Bob Maurer with his unusual specimens, including meteorite slices, and a couple of useful microscopes for sale. Nearby, John Cooper's unique book stall seemed alive with browsers all during the day; hope some people actually bought books though!

Although it is true to say that minerals are the mainstay of the Show, we do attract several fossil dealers (GAC Fossils, Stone Treasures, Mike's Minerals and Fossils) as well as gemstone/lapidary dealers (Peter Wates G4 Gems, Chara and Jasmin Seymour, who seems to have extended her wares beyond amber). And our own Derek Underdown continues to fascinate onlookers with his lapidary demonstration throughout the day.

Of equal fascination, and a highly popular feature of the Sussex Show, is the "Super UV Mineral Fluorescence" display provided in the back rooms: this year proved no exception and despite using two rooms, we have had calls to provide even more space (if only!). Many thanks yet again to Richard Belson and his team, several of whom travel down to us from Norfolk in a van loaded with cabinets and specimens.

Also in the back rooms, "panning for gold" and "making mum a pendant" provided practical activities that remained popular with the children, so many thanks to Jo, Ivan and Terry for their enthusiastic support. Also attracting the children was the tombola, where all sorts of small minerals were uncovered with great enthusiasm.

Up on the stage there were three special displays to entertain visitors: the National Museums Scotland mounted a display related to the history of the Museum, including a cabinet of Scottish specimens collected by the famous mineralogist Heddle (photo 4). SMLS has a special affinity with collecting on the Isle of Skye, indeed it sponsors Heddle's famous Sgurr nam Boc collecting site on MINDAT (Jolyon please note). Closer to home, the Sidcup Lapidary & Mineral Society provided an interesting collection of minerals collected from South East England (photo 5), including Sturry gypsum roses that looked like weird modern sculptures. The final display was the six cabinets of zeolites and associated minerals entered in this year's competition. There was agreement all round that the quality of all six entries was extremely high this year, reflecting the collecting standards of the entrants. So visitors were really treated to the very best of zeolites. The details of the Competition are reported by Mark Oddy separately below.

The three talks this year were very well attended with between 65 and 70 visitors attending each one. Mike Smith gave the junior corner talk on Fossils and Dinosaurs which was both interesting and instructive and ranged from sea urchins to our local dinosaur Iguanodon. Having both of the magic words "fossil" and "dinosaur" in this year's title resulted in the proportion of juniors to adults in the audience increasing dramatically. Ivor Thurgood followed this by taking us underground into the lead/zinc Smallcleugh mine in Nenthead, pointing out the superb dry stone walling, the ore chutes, the ballroom and even Ivor's hole which he had accidently backed into, and fell in, when taking photos. He showed a photo of Steve Rust, (who was sitting on the front row of the audience), looking like a gnome outside the entrance to the mine, which provided a good opportunity to congratulate Steve on having a new mineral, steverustite, named after him. The final talk was given by Peter Davidson, mineral curator at the Scottish National museums, who knowing SMLS's special interest in Sgurr nam Boc on the Isle of Skye was able to interpret the name as "only goats can climb these greasy slopes". Peter gave an account of the development of the Natural History museums in Scotland before showing some of the classic Scottish mineral specimens in their mineral gallery, including superb examples of calcite and harmotome from Strontian.

We were pleased this year to welcome a publicity stand for the Russell Society manned by its President, Roy Starkey and several other members during the day. Roy tells us that occupying "pole position" just inside the entrance was useful and that they received a good number of enquiries from people, many of whom seemed fairly "engaged": this effort immediately generated three new members and re-gained two lapsed members, as well as selling 14 Journals and Newsletters. To encourage younger visitors and newcomers to the hobby, a number of mineral books were given away, which went down very well!

Other feedback on the Show from some of those who attended and filled in questionnaires was reassuringly positive: especially noted were the quality of minerals on display, the UV displays, the helpfulness of the dealers, the three talks and the children's corner. The refreshments again came in for high praise, so well done the SMLS catering team: in fact, well done the whole SMLS team who helped this year. We did get a couple of concerns raised with us about lack of parking space and the safety exits that we are dealing with. For the dealers - we will make the early morning bacon butties larger next year - but in return please do not park in the Clair Hall car park as it should be reserved for our paying guests!

Finally, congratulations to Louis Lounds Hobbs whose questionnaire was first in the prize draw and has won an attractive apophyllite/stilbite specimen from India.

Trevor Devon




SUSSEX SHOW MINERAL COMPETITION - 2009

The mineral theme for the 2009 Competition was worldwide 'Zeolites and Associated Minerals'. The associated minerals aspect was introduced to allow entrants to include minerals such as apophyllite and cavansite which are not strictly in the Zeolite Group but are closely related to them in composition and method of occurrence. Inclusion of these associated minerals also gave the entrants the opportunity to add colour to their cabinets as most true zeolites are mainly colourless or milky white.
The six invited entrants were Neil Hubbard, Norman Moles, Allan Mortimer, Susan Smith, Roy Starkey and Mike Wood - all eminent zeolite collectors, none of whom had entered the competition in the previous four years.

Neil Hubbard's cabinet of self-collected UK specimens was designed to illustrate the remarkably broad range of sites in this country where zeolites can be found. His zeolite examples came from locations as far apart as Co. Antrim, Skye, Mull, Central Scotland, Wales, Northern England, the Midlands and Cornwall. Notable specimens included a slightly pink and un-desiccated laumontite from Beinn na Sreine in Mull, and a thomsonite from an unusual site in Burscough in Lancashire where it occurs in glacial erratics in a clay pit. There was an example of prehnite as an associated mineral from the St. Davids Head intrusion in Dyfed, Wales and two rare examples of zeolites from Cornwall. The first was a stilbite from the Carnmenellis granite at Trolvis Quarry near Longdowns (ex Richard Barstow) and the second was an apophyllite from the Levant Mine.

Norman Moles is the editor of the Journal of the Russell Society and after friendly persuasion he kindly agreed to enter a cabinet despite the fact that he would not be able to attend the Show as he was travelling to Cyprus on a field trip with his geology students. Peter Hay brought his specimens to Clair Hall and Pam Pearce and Mark Oddy very carefully arranged them in his cabinet according to Norman's previously photographed layout. Norman's theme was zeolites from Northern Ireland and those displayed were mainly collected by him in the late 1970s from quarries many of which have now closed down, so by extension there were many site rarities in his cabinet. Apart from his minerals, Norman displayed a very useful map of Northern Ireland showing the locations of quarries and other sites where zeolites have been found and also a brief written account of the genesis of Northern Ireland zeolites. Amongst the specimens noted was a pink/orange cockscomb of gmelinite-Na on analcime from Little Deer Park Quarries, Co. Antrim and a yellow gmelinite example with colourless analcime and red phillipsite from Old Deer Park Quarries. Craigahulliar Quarry, Portrush was the source of a 'dutch clog' chabazite var.phacolite which has a lens shape crystal habit rather than the normal pseudo-cubic habit and Magheramorne Quarry, Co. Antrim was the source of a pretty pink analcime.

Allan Mortimer, recently retired Chairman of the Sussex Society, has collected zeolites for many years and he entered a cabinet of specimens with a truly worldwide provenance (photo 1). He included a short introductory description of zeolites as a panel on the back wall of his cabinet and also provided a brief outline of the contents of each shelf. Thus the top shelf was devoted to stilbite and heulandite - two common zeolites showing similarities and/or variations in form and distribution. The middle shelf displayed zeolites with associations with other zeolites or other minerals and the bottom shelf displayed zeolites illustrating the range of variety - colour and form - within the zeolite group. Any number of specimens in this cabinet deserve a special mention but perhaps one closest to Allan's heart would be the outstanding edingtonite that he collected a few years ago at Squilver/More Quarry in Shropshire.

Susan Smith entered a cabinet devoted entirely to Zeolites and Associated Minerals of the Deccan Traps, Maharashtra, India. A map of India and a more detailed map of the Maharashtra area were displayed on the back wall of the cabinet to assist visitors with mineral localities. Among the minerals for which this area is famous, there could be seen four examples of blue cavansite - one as a rosette, one bladed, one in acicular sprays with stilbite sheaves and one with heulandite, mordenite and calcite in a basalt vug. Green apophyllites are much sought after from this area of India and Susan displayed two fine fluorapophyllite examples together with an unusual red apophyllite due to iron inclusions and a dark green prehnite with further apophyllite crystals. There was also a fine specimen of scolecite needle aggregates surmounted with lustrous golden calcite deposits.

Roy Starkey was another entrant whose cabinet of UK specimens contained a wide variety of zeolites collected from many different and sometimes unusual sites. Locations represented included Skye, Mull, Fife, Strontian, Strathclyde, Lothian, Powys, Leicestershire, Shropshire and Cornwall and probably more that were not spotted! A wide composite photographic panorama of mountainous scenes in Scotland illustrated typical zeolite locations and two side panels provided useful information for the visitor, with firstly a quick facts list about zeolites and secondly a list of all known zeolites with those on display in the cabinet outlined in yellow. Turning to the zeolite specimens a large scolecite from Ben More in Mull caught the eye as well as a red stilbite and a red heulandite from Earlston Reservoir, Touch Muir, Central Region, Scotland. An unusual location at Canty Bay, North Berwick was the source of a pink natrolite on analcime and a further orange analcime came from Croft Quarry in Leicestershire.

Mike Wood, who had travelled down from Yorkshire, entered a cabinet of zeolites which, with the exception of one specimen, had all been collected from the beach at Sgurr nam Boc on the west coast of Skye. This classic Heddle locality was rediscovered by the Sussex Mineral and Lapidary Society in 1984 and it was purely coincidental that opposite Mike's cabinet on the stage there was a display of Heddle minerals brought down from Edinburgh by curators from the National Museums Scotland. The boulder strewn beach was illustrated in a series of photographs in the cabinet but the difficulty of reaching this location, either by boat or down a near vertical 250m cliff was not evident and would only be recognized by other collectors who have experienced the problem of accessing the beach and then climbing back up the cliff with a full rucksack.

Some of the finest British zeolites were displayed in this case including a bowtie stilbite on pink heulandite which is also illustrated in an article on Scottish minerals in the UK Journal of Mines and Minerals - Number 21. There was a further stilbite on mesolite, a drusy quartz stalactite on heulandite, three colourless blocky apophyllites and a rare epistilbite with white curved crystals. Final mention is made of a mesolite on stilbite - almost resembling a badger hair shaving brush.

Judging

The Sussex Society was very pleased that Jolyon Ralph (photo 6), founder of the Mindat website and Society member, was available to judge the competition. His first comment on viewing the cabinets was that it was difficult to judge between those with a worldwide collection of zeolites and those from limited localities. All the cabinets had minerals of high quality and any could have won with differing criteria. Nevertheless taking the theme as 'Zeolites and Associated Minerals' one cabinet fulfilled that title by exhibiting a worldwide variety of zeolite minerals not just from basalt cavities but from other geological environments. This cabinet also contained the greatest number of distinct zeolite species and the deciding factor was the fabulous self-collected edingtonite from Shropshire. Thus Jolyon awarded the first prize to Allan Mortimer - who just happens to live in Shropshire! (photos 2 and 3 show Mark Oddy congratulating Allan and Allan proudly holding his trophy). Congratulations to Allan on a very well deserved win that will also enable him to hold his head up high at home as his wife Elvire won this competition three years ago.

Mark Oddy





   

   

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