Presentation of thulite mineral collecting trip to the Lia quarry near Lom, Jotunheimen, Norway in summer 2017. Selection of the pictures of the best finds with descriptions + brief overview about the locality itself.

1. Thulite from Lom,
Norway
Mineral collecting trip
© Zbyněk Buřival

2. Overview of the locality
• Located near Lom, Jotunheimen
(sometimes labeled Lia)
• Metamorphic rocks rich in thulite in
old quarry
• Quarry is private property,
collecting permit is necessary!
• Abundant thulite,sometimes with
piemontite
• Randomly mined for lapidary
material

3. Mineral Collecting
• Locality is on private property!
• No collecting is allowed
without a permit of
landowner!
• Check out allowed tools!
• You pay for specimens per
weight
• Still good opportunity for
collecting

4. First thulite on the way to the locality

5. Dump bellow the thulite quarry

6. There is plenty of low quality material

7. The thulite quarry – originally a road cut

8. Another view on the thulite quarry

9. Nice colored thulite rock

10. Lucky strike hidden bellow a boulder

11. Layer of great quality thulite

12. Nice thulite specimens

13. Nice color for the start

14. Pink thulite with darker dots of piemontite

15. Decent size for the keeper specimen

16. Thulite 6x6 cm

17. Thulite 11x5.5 cm

18. Thulite and piemontite (dark red) 11x8 cm

19. There are also edible mushrooms…

20. Did I mention the mushrooms?

21. Online resources
• http://fossheimsteinsenter.no/ - Fossheim Steinsenter website
• https://mineralexpert.org/article/thulite-zoisite-lia-norway-collecting-
trip - collecting trip report at MineralExpert.org
• https://mineralexpert.org/article/fossheim-steinsenter-mineral-
museum-lom-norway - Fossheim Steinsenter museum report
• https://www.mindat.org/min-3955.html - thulite on Mindat.org
• https://www.mindat.org/min-3208.html - piemontite on Mindat.org

22. Further reading
• Schaller, Waldemar Theodore & Jewell Jeannette Glass (1942), Occurrence
of pink zoisite (thulite) in the United States: American Mineralogist: 27:
519-524.
• Langer, K., Tillmanns, E., Kersten, M., Almen, H., and Arni, R.K. (2002) The
crystal chemistry of Mn 3+ in the clino- and orthozoisite structure types,
Ca2M3 3+[OH|O|SiO4|Si2O7]: A structural and spectroscopic study of
some natural piemontites and "thulites" and their synthetic equivalents.
Zeitschrift für Kristallographie: 217: 563-580.
• Srinivasulu, G., Sudhana, B. M., Reddy, B. J., Natarajan, R., & Rao, P. S.
(1992). Electron microprobe analysis: Optical and electron paramagnetic
resonance studies on Mn-rich zoisite (thulite). Spectrochimica Acta Part A:
Molecular Spectroscopy, 48(10), 1421-1425.