Selleck Road, West Pierrepont, NY

Occupying an east-west ridge just south and parallel to Selleck Road in West Pierrepont this location has been collected for decades.   The main part of the ridge is on state land and accessible without much walking, thereby adding to the popularity of the site.  Tremolite is everywhere, tourmaline (v. uvite) is much more localized along the ridge.  Both the light green tremolite and the uvite is typically etched and non-gemmy, however isolated pockets of very gemmy material has been found.

Selleck road

Most of the tremolite from this location is light green to green in color.  Massive tremolite can be collected with individual crystals ranging from mm to several cm in size.   Collecting quality specimens can be frustrating as the crystals are integrown, etched, and often broken both at the surface and when exposed by digging.  But no one who visits the location will go home without finding their fill of skarn mineralogy.   Occassionally the tremolite crystal faces are are dark green, reflective, and verge on gem quality although most of the time they are opaque and etched.

Tourmaline (v. uvite) is very localized and harder to find.   Although some high quality gemmy dark brown-black uvites have been recovered at a few spots along the ridge my only uvites are badly etched and incomplete.  Nonetheless, specimen of tremolite intergrown with the tourmaline are attractive and somewhat unique.

A long list of other silicate minerals are reported from the location, which seems to be a contact zone between marble and a calc-silicate unit where metamorphism has permitted ion exchange to allow for the skarn development.   There have been new finds reported there in recent years to compliment and  extend the known mineralogy reported previously.

For more about this location, see:

Chamberlain, S. C., and Robinson, G. W., 2013,  West Pierrepont Tremolite Occurrence, in The Collector’s Guide to the Minerals of New York State, Schiffer books, p. 52-56.

Walter, M. R., 2007, Field Collecting Minerals in the Empire State, Chapter 10.  The Selleck Road Occurrence, p. 148-156.

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