The Mineralogical Society of Southern California

Program Notes: Friday, March 13, 2026  at 7:30, join us for Glenn Waychunas, Fluorescent Minerals of Poudrette Quarry, Mt. St. Hilaire, Quebec, Canada

With 445 known species, Mont Saint-Hilaire (MSH) has become renowned for the diversity of its minerals and the superb quality many of its species. Mineral specimens from here are to be found in most major collections world-wide, both public and private. Currently, of the 445 known species, 73 were originally described from this locality. Of those 73, 35 have not been found elsewhere. There are also at least 85 distinct species at Mont Saint-Hilaire that are fluorescent, with many of these brilliantly so. In this talk I will show photos of many diverse specimens, as well as microscope photos, of interesting MSH minerals and assemblages.  MSH is a unique high alkali deposit with relatively significant concentrations of REE.  It thus has a trove of elements that can act as activators of luminescence. Much work still needs to be done to understand how these function, and indeed, quite a few MSH species are still new and yet to be named.

Glenn Waychunas is a visiting scientist at Caltech (Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences) and a scientific associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). He received his Ph.D. in 1979 from UCLA.  He is the author or coauthor of more than 200 scientific papers, and was formerly Professor at Stanford University and Senior Scientist at LBNL. His research work has focused on sorption of ions on mineral interfaces, along with near surface aqueous solution and solid structure.  He has also made contributions to nanoscience, geochemistry, non-linear spectroscopy, x-ray spectroscopy and luminescence spectroscopy.  Most recently, with the late George Rossman, he has been characterizing activators in minerals with poorly understood luminescence. He is an avid mineral collector with more than 5000 samples in his collection; many collected on trips around the world.

SPECIAL ZOOM MEETING NOTICE

MSSC members will automatically be on the invite list each month.

Non Members, you must request to attend the MSSC zoom meeting every month.  Email our Speakers chair, Carolyn Seitz at speakers@mineralsocal.org  no later than the Thursday before the scheduled meeting   Please include “ZOOM Meeting” in the subject line of your response. We will send you the meeting link.

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