MSH-Mineral Descriptions

This page will link you to mineral descriptions of all mineral species found at Mont Saint-Hilaire. This list is based on the official species list dated 9 November 2003 as published by Malcolm Back, Royal Ontario Museum, Bob Gault, Canadian Museum of Nature and Bob Ramik, Royal Ontario Museum. The number of species now stands at 357, of which 49 are new to science. Biotite, oligoclase, tetranatrolite and vuoriyarvite-K are maintained on the list, however, they are not counted.

NEW – 2 new type locality species have been accepted by IMA for MSH. There are also 4 additional new species for the Poudrette quarry: mazzite-Na, sazhinite-(La), smithsonite and zirsilite-(Ce). Although a recent addition at MSH, vuoriyarvite-K is not a valid species for MSH, it is IMA 2005-030.

Many thanks to all organisms and amateurs that have embellished this site with their photomicrographs.

All type locality species now have abstracts linked on page, courtesy of American Mineralogist, Canadian Mineralogist and European Journal of Mineralogy. However beware, many others species are on the way…

To assist you in finding pictures, sketches or crystal drawings of your favorite minerals, I have put a letter behind the species for which these are present. They will be represented as follows: (a) for mineral description abstracts; (d) for crystal diagram; (p) for photographs; (p+) for large format photographs; (pp) for stereographic pairs and (s) for sketch.