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| Widgiemoolthalite Walkabout By Harvey Jong Walkabout is an Australian term for walking in the bush for an extended period of time for spiritual enlightenment, and this article describes a 5-year personal journey of discovery involving the rare mineral Widgiemoolthalite. My adventure started in the fall of 2000 while I was browsing the website, webmineral.com. The site features sound files on pronouncing mineral names, and one of these files included Widgiemoolthalite which I thought sounded rather neat. Digging a bit deeper, I learned that Widgiemoolthalite is a hydrated nickel carbonate found in Western Australia near the town of Widgiemooltha. It occurs as bluish-green spheroids of radiating fibers and has a silky luster. Since I collect carbonate minerals, I added it to my shopping list for the upcoming Tucson Show. I searched around the various dealers in Tucson, but wasn't able to find a specimen. However, during a spring 2001 field trip, I mentioned to Ray Grant, who frequently visits Australia, that I was interested in a sample of Widgiemoolthalite. Ray took up the challenge and made several inquiries on his next trip. I was very surprised in Decmember when Ray returned with the following specimen: |
Given the allure of the mineral symposium and the 132 North mine,
I decided that I would have to go to Australia in 2005. Fortunately,
I had accumulated over 150,000 frequent flyer miles, and this solved
the problem of getting to Perth. Over the next two years, though, I
fretted over what camera, computer and camping gear to pack for the trip.
June 2005 soon rolled by, and my adventure shifted 9700 miles to the "land down under". I joined Ray and his wife Cynthia (our generous tour guides) along with 7 other fellow travelers in attending the mineral seminar and "fossicking" (Australian term for rockhounding) around Western Australia. 
Group "musters" in Perth for the big Western Australia adventure |
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Widgiemoolthalite, gaspeite and unknown glassy green mineral (field of view: 2.0cm x 1.6cm) |
One of the seminar speakers included Dr. Alex Bevan who is the Curator
of Mineralogy and Meteoritics at the Western Australian Museum in Perth.
He described the history of the museum's mineral collection which
contains about 30,000 specimens. He also mentioned that the museum is
"one of the largest repositories of Australian type minerals". (An
important fact as we'll see later on.)
After the seminar, our group went on the field trips to some nearby pegmatite deposits. Upon reaching Kalgoorlie, we bid farewell to our Aussie friends and started on our extended tour of Western Australia. The first stop was Widgiemooltha and the 132 North mine. Widgiemooltha is a very small town located 80 km south of Kalgoorlie. A tavern/roadhouse makes up much of the community, and it features two distinctive "tourist" landmarks - a huge, but unrecognizable, reproduction of the Golden Eagle gold nugget and a fancy outhouse:
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The next steps in my walkabout story happened in 2003. First, I
heard about the Joint Mineralogical Societies of Australia Seminar
which is held every year in a different state around the Queen's
birthday. This two-day symposium features talks on Australian
minerals and is followed by a number of field trips around the host city.
For 2005, the meeting was scheduled to be in Perth, Western Australia.
The second key event involved another one of Ray's trips to Australia. On this visit, he ventured to the 132 North Nickel mine - the type locality for Widgiemoolthalite! He described the dumps as having piles of green minerals everywhere. |
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