[Geysers] Geyserite at Smithsonian

[TSBryan at aol.com]

I'm pretty sure I sent the following to Lee Whittlesey about 10 years ago, 
but perhaps the entire group would be interested. The bears on the hypothesis 
that Vixen Geyser used of have a cone. I wrote a query to the Smithsonian 
Institution and received the following, dated February 23, 1995:
--------
I received your request for information concerning geyserite from Yellowstone 
here in the Department of Mineral Sciences. The earliest documented 
occurrence of geyserite from Yellowstone in our catalog is specimen #10809. It is 
listed as "vent of geyser" and was catalogued in the spring of 1881. There is no 
mention of the 1876 Centennial Exposition, so I cannot say whether it was 
collected for exhibition there. The speciment is from the Mammoth Hot Springs area, 
and the listed donor is a Major Stevenson. This speciment stands approximately 
1 1/2 feet tall, with a 1 foot diameter at its base. No chemical analysis has 
been done. There is another, larger sinter cone from Yellowstone which I 
recently accessioned as "found in the collection". This means there are no 
detailed records associated with the specimen. Records for many of the older 
specimens were lost to fire at the turn of the century. I hope this information is 
useful to you and I'm sorry it could not be more complete.

Sincerely yours, 
Leslie J. Hale
Museum Specialist
Rock and Ore Collection
---------
Readers will have noted that geyserite does not occur at Mammoth Hot Springs, 
so the questions remain:

1. Is the cone identified as #10809 geyserite, or travertine?
2. Where is the other cone from?

Scott Bryan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20050120/4a80abc6/attachment.html>