Mineral Section

Mineral Section Message

Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Social Time: 7:00 pm
Meeting Time: 7:30 pm
Speaker: Tom Faller
Topic: Zeolites
Location: In-person and via Zoom Link on the GMS Calendar here

There was no December Mineral Section meeting. I hope everyone got lots of rocks in their stocking for Christmas.

The January meeting will start the year off with a discussion of zeolites. They are a group of aluminum-bearing silicates with a strong but open structure, easily allowing the flow of water through the molecule, even to the surface. The crystal framework allows ions to move through and exchange ions in the water with Ions in the crystal, or trap ions within the structure. Their most familiar use may be in water softeners, trapping the hard water calcium ions and replacing them with soft water sodium ions.

They are also used as molecular sieves, trapping a variety of unwanted or wanted substances by size or by molecular charge, including filtering yeast from beer, trapping radioactive particles from leaks and refining petroleum. The structures have been so thoroughly studied since the 1960’s that a whole industry designs synthetic zeolites for specific applications in industry.

Zeolites occur in Georgia and are widespread but are usually unnoticed by rockhounds because they are very small, making them of interest more to micromineral collectors. We will have several examples of Georgia zeolites on hand from field trips and will discuss where to find them and how to recognize them.

The meeting link will be sent out earlier in the month.

Tom Faller
Mineral Section Chair