Fauske

DESCRIPTION

Fauske is a small community in the middle of Norway. Outside of geological circles it is best known for it's beautiful marble. I was told it was exported even to Italy.
The marble quarry is seen from the road when you drives through Fauske. It lies on the hillside where blocks are cutted loose out of the mountain with steel wires. Each block of stone is in the size of 15.000 kg. The waste pile consisted of small pieces of marble up to a meter.

For people collecting minerals, Fauske means big beautiful garnets. The locality we visited was exposing a horisont of about two meters of garnet bearing schist. It's inclination was almost vertical and exposed for about 50m. At one side of the garnet horisont there was plenty of staurolite crystals, sometimes the rock was pure staurolite and garnet. The staurolite made fine specimens with dark black crystals in light colored schist.

VISITS

1997
This was my first visit here and I had good company as Eli and Odd guided me right to the spot of the garnets. The locality doesn't look much for the world, but when we got close I could see all the beautiful garnets in the mountain.
We worked with the garnets and staurolite for about three hours, the last hour with one singular crystal group. It hadn't come free as we should go on to the marble quarry, so I put the chisel a bit closer. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the crystals together with the matrix, but at least I got them with me home.

The marble guarry was very interesting, but not from a mineralogical point of view. Calcite in white, yellow and red mixed with layers of light green fuchsite made wery beautiful pieces. As all small rocks is waste, it was no problem to find suitable samples to bring back home. The ordinary size of a raw marble block for the industry was 15 tons! and the hillside was cut in these blocks by wires.
Odd wasn't so happy about the quarry, nothing interesting and everything got dirty with this white calcite dust.
Eli on the other hand jumped around saying "nydeli" all the time. She also took the price of largest rock, 20 kg. but it was "nydeli" (nydeli=nice or qute)

Mineral assemblage

In the marble quarry
Fuchsite, calcite.
With the garnets
Almandine, Staurolite, Quartz.

Calcite
Red and white calcite marble layered with green fuchsite.
The marble makes nice stuffs of red, white and green layers. Some pieces shows off all colors from yellow to red.
Collected 1997
(172 dpi, 800x600, k)

Almandine
This is the crystals I worked with when we should go home. It consists of two almandine crystals grown together.
The bigger crystal is 5x4 cm and the smaller one 3.5x2 cm.
Collected 1997
(300 dpi, 800x600, k)

Almandine
Two almandine crystals in a piece of schist.
Pieces like this wasn't hard to find on the ground. The crystals wasn't so big, just 4x3 and 3x2 cm.
Collected 1997
(300 dpi, 800x600, k)

Staurolite
This shows a twinned staurolite crystal together with an almandine.
I was lucky with this one, since it's hard to get the crystals out of the rock without damaging it.
Size 2cm x 1cm (twin branche), almandine 2 cm. Collected 1997
(300 dpi, 800x600, k)

Staurolite
What do you call a rock that consists of pure almandine and staurolite ???.
.....
Collected 1997
(300 dpi, 800x600, k)

Quartz
Quartz crystals in the size of big rice grains. They are double terminated and striated, not any good quality, but an intresting sample anyhow.
From a quartz vein running straight through the staurolite/almandine bearing layer.
Collected 1997
(300 dpi, 800x600, k)

If you have some questions, suggestions or comments you are welcome to write me a line or two.

Locality index. Main index.

axelsson@acc.umu.se

	Calcite Red and white calcite marble layered with green fuchsite. The marble makes nice stuffs of red, white and green layers. Some pieces shows off all colors from yellow to red. Collected 1997 (172 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Almandine This is the crystals I worked with when we should go home. It consists of two almandine crystals grown together. The bigger crystal is 5x4 cm and the smaller one 3.5x2 cm. Collected 1997 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Almandine Two almandine crystals in a piece of schist. Pieces like this wasn't hard to find on the ground. The crystals wasn't so big, just 4x3 and 3x2 cm. Collected 1997 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Staurolite This shows a twinned staurolite crystal together with an almandine. I was lucky with this one, since it's hard to get the crystals out of the rock without damaging it. Size 2cm x 1cm (twin branche), almandine 2 cm. Collected 1997 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Staurolite What do you call a rock that consists of pure almandine and staurolite ???. ..... Collected 1997 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)
	Quartz Quartz crystals in the size of big rice grains. They are double terminated and striated, not any good quality, but an intresting sample anyhow. From a quartz vein running straight through the staurolite/almandine bearing layer. Collected 1997 (300 dpi, 800x600, k)