Jeffrey Chiarenzelli

The Grenville Province, covering much of upstate New York, southeastern Ontario, and southern Québec, has been the source of many amazing mineral specimens. Its crystalline rocks are more than a billion years old, and unlike most mineralogical heritage sites, new discoveries are the rule rather than the exception. The province also contains deposits of commercially important minerals such as iron, zinc, talc, garnet, apatite, and mica. More than 400 photographs highlight specimens from the world-renowned collections of the Canadian Museum of Nature, the New York State Museum, and selected private collections. This pleasurable journey includes sections devoted to colorful gemstones and fluorescent minerals, and explains the mineralogical, geological, and historical significance of these minerals.

Since its discovery by a teenager in 1859, thousands of specimens of lustrous black tourmaline crystals from Pierrepont, New York, have found their way into both museum and private mineral collections worldwide. Pierrepont is a classic American mineral locality and a popular site for field collecting, and the discovery of new collecting sites there in the past decade has only enhanced its importance. Yet no detailed scientific research has been published until now. The six authors represent a team with comprehensive skills to tackle this study, which covers the locality's history, geology, and mineralogy. The origin of the mineralization, the true nature of the black tourmaline, and the extensive suite of accessory minerals are presented in detail. The authors also resolve identification questions about the tourmaline and its many accessory minerals.