Welcome to my Home Page about The Wannenköpfe, a quarry in the Eifelregion, Germany.
A home page about one little quarry in Germany .... Why ???
My first visit to the Wannenköpfe dated back from the late 1999 !
What an awful experience ! Accompanied by six other mineral collectors we searched for hours in this huge quarry for interesting rock, but, despites all the efforts without succes.
We haven't found absolutely anything ! Later that year I heard and read (see the magnificent article in Mineralien Welt, number 6/99, "Die Wannenköpfe bei Ochtendung in der Vulkaneifel und ihre Mineralien" , from G. Blass and H.W. Graf)
that just a very small area at the far end of the quarry was interesting for mineral collectors. You could find a lot of Topaz, and with a little luck even the very rare Jeremejevite !
So in the spring of 2000 I was back, this time on the right spot. I'll never forget this first visit; buckets full with very interesting material.
After cracking I had hundreds of nice specimens with lots of beautiful Topaz, Mullite, Sanidine, Pseudobrookite, Rutile, different forms of Hematite,
nice Amphibole, a lot of Cristobalite, Nosean, and even Corundum and Osumilite. Not bad after one visit. For me it was obvious; for the present I would visit only one quarry .....................The Wannenköpfe.
It's now 2006, and still I regular visit the quarry, and mostly with good results. Of course, the chance to find new minerals, when you have visited the quarry as much as I did, is very small. But often I am still surprised !! ... finding new beautiful forms ... other colours ... bigger/nicer crystals.
And who knows; maybe one day I'll find some "missing" Wannenkopf minerals like Roedderite, or Wagnerite.
I like to share my collection with others, that's why I made this site. Because I hope to learn from this site also, I am counting on your feedback, corrections, additions, tips, etc. They are always welcome.
Most photo's are made with an analog Olympus OM 4 in combination with an Olympus auto bellows and
Carl Zeiss Luminar lenses / the Leica Photar lens, or a digital Nikon Coolpix 4500 in combination with a Carl Zeiss Stemi SR stereozoom microscope with a Leitz Wetzlar Periplan Red Dot photo ocular.
With a magnet, an iron ball from a ballbearing and some glue you can make a handy specimen holder. The slides are scanned in with a film scanner (Epson perfection).
My homepage is still under construction ! I'll try to add pictures every week.
With thanks to a lot of people, especially the owner of the quarry for giving me permission to visit the Wannenköpfe, Günter Blass (determining and analysing), Piet Stemvers, Jacques Feijen, Richard De Nul (photography, inspiration), the boys and girls from Sittard (GEA group, SE Netherlands) and of course Frank de Wit .
Hope you'll enjoy it.
Started on 18 april 2005 with Hematite.
Additions: april-Pseudobrookite, may-Jeremejevite-several Hematites-Rutile-Zircon-Corundum, june-Topaz, september-Muscovite, october-Forsterite-Phlogopite-Biotite, november-Magnetite, december-Fayalite, january 2006-Nosean, february-Spinel, march-Titanite, june-Tridymite, august-Cordierite, september-Osumilite, december-Sodalite, may 2007-Magnesioferrite.
Coming: (Proto)Dolomite.
NEW: Magnesioferrite
Articles:
Click here for the POW .... Picture Of the Week !
Click here for the POW ....Galery
Starting with: IN DEN DELLEN
Bulkemstraat 22 6369 XW Simpelveld The Netherlands
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