Guidebook to the Pegmatites of Western Australia
by Mark Ivan Jacobson, Mark Andrew Calderwood, Benjamin Alexander Grguric
ISBN 0 85905 378 4, (2007 New), Soft cover, French flap, 394pp, well illustrated, 700 grams
$80.00* + POST (Overseas postage on application. Sea Mail and Air Mail only)
Western Australia is a treasure trove. Emeralds, green tourmalines, purple lepidolite, lustrous black tantalite and other minerals are found in pegmatites scattered across the vastness of Western Australia. Fossickers, prospectors, and miners have searched out and mined these pegmatites since the late 1800s. Successive mineral booms for cassiterite, muscovite, beryl, lithium, feldspar and most recently tantalum during the 1990s resulted in further pegmatite exploration. The locations, directions to the deposits and descriptions of these localities areoften buried in obscure or unpublished reports or even kept secret by a handful of fossickers.
The Guidebook to the Pegmatites of Western Australia summarises the history, geology and mineralogy for all the known pegmatites in Western Australia. Most importantly, the book provides specific, geodetic locations of these deposits and their ownership where known. As such, this guidebook is an excellent first tool for planning recreational fossicking trips to Western Australian localities. For professional geologists first encountering Western Australia, the guidebook is an excellent introduction to the pegmatites and their economic minerals, containing first hand information, in some cases available no where else.
For armchair collectors with purchased mineral specimens, the guidebook will help clarify labels of minerals attributed to Western Australian pegmatites. More than 200 pegmatite groups are described with 75 maps and 100 pictures in 340 pages, completely referenced. Each pegmatite group is located, directions given to the locality, its mining history, geology and mineralogy. This book is an essential companion to Edward S. Simpson’s 1948-52, Minerals of Western Australia, locating the sources of his described pegmatite minerals.
The authors of the guidebook know their subject.
Mark Ivan Jacobson is a geologist-mineralogist with a specialty in pegmatites since the 1970s. Mark Andrew Calderwood is a second generation pegmatite geologist-mineralogist, who started exploring and mining Western Australian pegmatites with his father in the 1970s. He has personally mined more than a few of the described localities and currently manages a tantalite deposit in Africa. Benjamin Alexander Grguric is a professional mineralogist and a life-long fossicker. These three have combined their experiences, providing the reader with the results of their searching and finding pegmatites in Western Australia.