Sorensenite collecting at the base of Kvanefjeld
        From the left: Don Yonika,
        in red jacket: Herb Yeates.
        The fluorescent mineral called sorensenite
        is only found in the Illimaussaq complex of Greenland - it's
        a single-locality occurrence. The large boulders had tumbled
        down from Kvanefjeld mountain and among them could be found sorensenite
        but it required a hard work to find any. We saw one area that
        had been mined - more sorensenite remained but it was infeasible
        to collect it. While the others remained lower down I clambered
        up a risky route through the still-wet boulder field until I
        began to find previously undiscovered specimens of sorensenite.
        Encouraged, I went even higher up the boulders. Then I saw it
        - the Mother lode of sorensenite! I scrambled down onto a convenient
        flat area and gathered up a dozen or so good-sized pieces, meaning
        they were nearly an inch in size....not bad for this rare mineral.
        But my prize of the night was a sorensenite that was a few inches
        long. They were all terribly fragile pieces but I got them home
        just fine. I did call some of the others to come see my discovery.
        When they got there, it turned out that I had rediscovered a
        "lost location", one they knew about but didn't where
        it is. So I was happy on several counts. Lee and Herb did attempt
        to extract more sorensenite from "my" spot but it wasn't
        very successful. The sorensenite hike was a tricky bit of manuevering
        but turned out to be one of the high points of my trip.  |