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YEAR 2003 FEATURED MINERALS

In January 2003, we featured a new find of Aurichalcite [(Zn,Cu2+)5(CO3)2(OH)6] from White Pine County, Nevada.
February was another special month, as we featured Colemanite [Ca2B6O11•5H2O] from Boron, Kern County, California.
Although it's considered traditional for the 60th wedding anniversary, we thought we would celebrate the seventh anniversary of the Mineral of the Month Club by featuring the hardest known substance on Earth, diamond (C) in March. This was the 85th mineral we've featured! Of course, the diamonds we sent Club members are much smaller than in the photo, and the color isn't quite as bright. (Photo by Jeff Scovill.)
April was another outstanding month as we featured octahedral crystals of magnetite [Fe2+Fe3+2O4] on matrix from the recent find on Cerro Rico, near Potosi,  Bolivia. The write-up detailed the fascinating properties of this highly magnetic mineral, found both in Martian meteorites and the human brain.
May was another special month as we feature blue fluorapatite [Ca5(PO4)3F] crystals with wonderfully glassy luster from near the south side of Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia. Members had the opportunity to upgrade to a larger specimen if they wished to.
JUNE 2003     We will always remember June 2003 as the month Rock & Gem's article about our Club came out, in their August 2003 issue, and more than 35 new members signed up in a week and a half! By some amazing coincidence, right after the Club article was an article about the quartz scepters we sent to Club members in June-- how serendipitous! These are from the new find just outside the city of Chihuahua, Mexico. Though smaller in size (Deluxe members  received crystals between 2" by ½" and 3" by 1") than other minerals we've featured, collectors have been eagerly snapping them up at high prices (typically between $25 and $50) since they first hit the market last year. The Mineralogical Record calls them "elegant," with scepter-tips that are much wider than their stalks. The write-up explained how this and several other wonderful phenomena occur in quartz crystals. What a month!
JULY 2003  The deluge of new members, mainly from the Rock & Gem article, continued through July, with about 93 new members in a month and a half! July was another outstanding month as we featured very pretty specimens of bright cherry-red rhodonite [(Mn2+,Fe2+,Mg,Ca)SiO3], from Conselheiro Lafaiette, Minas Gerais, Brazil. It took  several years to obtain these, and they were worth the wait! The Brazilian collector was careful to furnish us specimens where at least one crystal face is evident, since rhodonite specimens with well-defined faces as quire rare and expensive. Deluxe-size specimens were a little smaller than our typical Deluxe-size mineral, about 2" by 1½".
AUGUST 2003 We featured crystals of black tourmaline from the new find in the Erongo Region, Namibia. These were very attractive specimens with good terminations.
SEPTEMBER 2003 We featured something a little different in the month of September-- the calcite pseudomorphs after ikaite from the Kola Peninsula, Russia, commonly known as "Glendonites." Our Deluxe specimens were rounded nodules cut in half and polished to reveal the mineral inside, and Deluxe members received both halves. Junior members received rosette specimens, with no matrix.
Two views of the same specimen.	OCTOBER 2003 Our first featured mineral when we started the Club in March 1996 was pyrite in the form of the near-perfect cubes from Spain. In October, we featured it again in our 91st month in its octahedral form, from the exceptional find at the Huanzala Mine, Huanuco, Peru, source of what the Mineralogical Record calls the "best pyrite specimens in the world." Club members who already had a fine  pyrite specimen let us know ahead of time, and we skipped sending one this month to them, added another month to their membership in its place, and still sent them the monthly write-up so they could read up on it!
NOVEMBER 2003  We featured the second of two sulfides in a row, sending outstanding specimens of chalcopyrite from Peru. As you can see from the photos, these were highly attractive specimens, from the Animon Mine, Pasco Department, Peru. On most specimens, the chalcopyrite is associated with needle quartz or sphalerite and other sulfide minerals. This was a special month!	The bottom photo shows a close-up of the chalcopyrite crystal.
Photo on bottom is close-up of crystals on upper specimen.	DECEMBER 2003 We closed out another year of wonderful specimens with peridot, the name for the gem variety of the mineral forsterite [Mg2SiO4]. The write-up explained in detail the relationship between peridot, olivine, and the forsterite-fayalite mineral series. This month's specimens were on a heavy grayish-black basalt matrix, and come from the San Carlos Reservation, Arizona.