Articles
Geological Library of Geoff Blackburn.
Retired geologist Geoff Blackburn’s international geological library is now for sale.
Some 266 + shelving feet of books and journals are now available for inspection at the Hesperian Press warehouse.
Highlights are a very large section on Africa/Middle East and substantial collections on South America and SE Asia.
Preference given to the sale of each of these sections complete. Offers for the full collection solicited from corporate or individual buyers.
Contains many rare and very difficult to obtain items.
Further gems in consideration for sale are a beautifully bound set of WA Geological Survey Bulletins, a well bound set of Mines Department Annual Reports, a bound set of the Aerial Geological and Geophysical Survey of Northern Australia, and also an unbound set.
Minerals of Western Australia, 1935 to present.
Project. To collect all information on the distribution of mineral species in Western Australia post-Dr. E. S. Simpson's Minerals of Western Australia. (but also to incorporate material that Dr Simpson missed).
Dr. Simpson died in 1939 and the work was finished by Dr Dorothy Hill. The three volumes were published in 1948, 1951, and 1952.
No other state has anything like MWA. Queensland has a Mineral Index published in 1912. Several checklists of minerals were published in Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Few nations have such collations except France, Madagascar and a few American states.
MWA proved invaluable to generations of researchers, geologists, prospectors and collectors. It is no exaggeration to say that millions of dollars have been made from the included data. As a scientific resource it is unparalleled.
Very few mining companies were helpful in adding to the state collections in the time I was there, from 1961 to 1978. But many made use of the information provided. Fewer mining companies were prepared to cooperate in the initial updating proposal of 2010, and there was a dearth of collectors that were serious enough to be prepared to knuckle down to the long and systematic work involved. I term this problem the ‘Henny Penny Syndrome.’ http://goodsensibilities.blogspot.com/2008/11/henny-penny.html - not the Wikipedia filth!
Now collectors abound and a few even read the literature beyond the infantile ‘grabs’ on the internet.
It is proposed that checking will go back to 1935 to ensure little is missed, due to time lags in publishing and accessibility of journals when Dr Simpson was collating his manuscript.
This data is in :‑
Journals and published reports, including older newspapers.
Company reports held by the GSWA
Files of the Government Chemical Laboratories archives.
Files of the Geological Survey of WA
Files of the Minerals Division of the CSIRO
Files of the Bureau of Mineral Resources
Specimens held in the collections of the WA Museum, WA School of Mines, University of WA Geology Department, private collections.
Of necessity this is a multi-volume affair. It must be approached systematically, and not ‘cherry picked.’ Hit and run attitudes are not wanted. For the first stage of this project only the journals, published reports and newspapers are to be systematically covered, but scattered material from private collections will also be considered.
The literature must be systematically checked to find all references to papers published on WA minerals and mineralogy. While this may appear to conflict with GSWA publications on mineral resources, it will not, as the emphasis is different, but there will be a minor overlap.
For those who will become involved each will have identifying initials attached to their para as per the Mineralogical Abstracts, a companion to the Mineralogical Magazine of London. This ensures that claims to expertise and competence are backed by evidence and contributors acknowledged.
The abstracting of the new MWA entries will be done by competent persons. Those searching the journals/files will not necessarily be the final abstracters. All, however, will be acknowledged.
The work was started by the indexing of Government Chemical Laboratories Annual Reports in 1970 as Mineral and Locality Index to the Publications of the WA Government Chemical Laboratories 1922-1970. Peter J Bridge. Hesperian Press.1972. Unfortunately the then more accessible GCLARs were used. These are now rare. The same data with different pagination is in the digitized Mines Department Annual Reports.
This was later followed by the indexing of the GCL Mineral Division collections by PJB in the 1970s and the production of a computer index. This was said to be published, unacknowledged, in the late 1980s but I have never seen a copy. So perhaps my master copy is now the sole copy. The GCL was corporatized and computer records may no longer exist.
A systematic reading of all early goldfields newspapers has uncovered many previously unknown mineral finds, such as the discovery of nickel on the goldfields in the 1890s.
Further work was started in the early 2000s by the systematic sifting of Mineralogical Abstracts for references using the resources of the Mines Department Library. It is this latter referencing which shall be the centre of the first stage of this work. However it is essential to check all the journals as certain editors of MA were a little too selective. From these references the full paper will be p/copied to match all references. By 2010 I was well ahead but then other realities intruded. I have substantial files already compiled. It is proposed that the final set of these documents eventually be placed in the GSWA Library or in the WA Museum Library.
This is not a project which needs money, at this stage. It is to be volunteer run. Once compiled discussions can take place as to the style of dissemination of the results.
The entries may of necessity be briefer than those styled in the original MWA.
Later each locality will have to be plotted to give a grid of the 1:100,000 sheet which can then be indexed automatically on completion.
Descriptive details will be restricted to a formula. Formulas can be perhaps based on those in Fleischer’s Glossary of Mineral Species, if still produced. Detailed mineral descriptions would not be included as there are many textbooks now available, in print or on-line, and inclusion would measurably conflict with the energy required to complete the index.
The formulation of a spreadsheet to enable all this data to be sorted will be done at the same time as the references are collected.
This proposal is now being published for consideration by those interested. Personally, I may not be able to be involved due to age and other commitments. But I am happy to guide such if the right personnel become involved. Several other proposals have been made over the years but all were unworkable. This proposal will be on record as the only practical way to collate the information to produce an acceptable outcome.
Having created (with Kim Epton) the Western Australian Explorers Diaries’ Project Inc. (an incorporated body) and produced over 20 large volumes of such diaries I can claim some knowledge of preparing and completing a major research operation. In this we had to weed those who were onlookers, parasites, or saboteurs. There are many that take but do not give.
Peter J. Bridge
9 November 2024.