Once a year for three weeks in January and February the entire world of mineral, fossil, and semi-precious stone quarriers and suppliers converge on Tucson, Arizona. Hundreds of vendors selling Moroccan marine fossils, Malagasy petrified wood, Chinese crystals, and Russian meteorites crowd the tents and convention centers, along with quarriers from Australia, Afghanistan, the Congo and elsewhere. It is quite a spectacle.
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Incredible Quartz Crystals
South Americans always seem to have the largest quartz crystals at the show. Are they trying to tell us something?
Amazing Fossils
From small hand specimens to full Wooly Mammoth skeletons.
Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan
Prized since antiquity for its intense blue color, lapis lazuli is a rare metamorphic rock that has been quarried in northeastern Afghanistan since the Bronze Age. Although lapis is quarried in a few other places, the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan is the true motherload of lapis deposits.
Malachite from the Congo
Malachite is a deep-green-colored, copper-bearing mineral that is commonly polished as a semi-precious gem stone. Malachite vendors at Tucson are mostly from the Congo. Every year I buy a few pieces from the same woman.
Shiva Lingams
Lingams are egg-shaped symbols of the Hindu diety Shiva, carved from a very hard quartz sandstone from central India. Some vendors tell me that these are naturally-shaped stones from the Narmada River. I don’t believe this (the naturally-shaped part), but I think they are cool garden ornaments and I bought several smaller lingams.
Baltic Amber
I had a good laugh with two Polish guys selling amber (petrified tree sap) that they collect from the shores of the Baltic Sea, by a method they described as “not exactly legal.”
Many Australians
The Australian vendors are mostly from Western Australia (“WA” as they say). They are a rough-and-tumble lot, much like building stone quarriers I know in the western US, and they offer a unique range of Australian rocks and minerals.
