Tom Spirifer

Hello everybody! First of all I am sorry I am writing in English, unfortunately my French is very poor I am able to read but dont think you would understand if I wrote something in French :) I am happy you like our pictures from Morocco and you read the the report.I wanted to answer some questions that appeared about our society and our activity, and Imilchil. Cedrick, Our society (Spirifer Geological Society) was established to popularize geology and mineralogy. We carry out a range of educational activities and as many societies we also have a business activity, but in oppositon to other societies that do similar things we are not founded by goverment or other organizations but we are self sufficent. We use only our own money for our statutory activity, and we earn it by selling minerals - - we have been providing a free weekly geology and mineralogy leesons for young children [ http://www.pracownia.spirifer.org/ ] already for 20 years, we organize trips for children (during holidays and weekends) and also for Spam interested in geology. eg. http://www.spiriferminerals.com/61,VIII-20...-at-Crimea.html We also publish and distribute a free newspaper called "Minarały" ("Minerals" ) ( http://mineraly.waw.pl/gazeta_mineraly_6a ) that is intended for amateurs. We co-organize the biggest mineral event in Poland in Lwowek Slaski (we are in charge of the strictly mineralogical attractions such as exhibitions). Here is the exhibition from this year [http://www.spiriferminerals.com/58,Exhibition---Metals-Changed-into-Crystals.html] Sometimes we prepare time-exhibitions in some polish geology museums, we give lectures, slideshows etc, orgaize meeting for collectors eg. http://www.spiriferminerals.com/60,Mineral...-in-Lwowek.html Generally we try to interest people in Poland in geology and mineralogy (and believe me it is not easy here :-) ) All of these we do non-profit as the purpose of our society, and apart from that we of course sell minerals as you know, but we always keep the best specimens from all of our trips and purchases to Spirifer collection , in the future we are planning to open a museum - which is our dream. I am sorry for posting all those links and writing all that stuff but I wanted to claryfy who we are. Hope that is fine with you and you will not hate me for making a mess at your forum. Zunyite, Honestly I really dont understand accustaions - and I also wanted to claryfy that. This is true that in the region of Imilchil there are magmatic intrusion but the mineralization occurs in the pegmatites! (see any literature about it, it is also visible on our photos). There are a lot of intrusions (not only one as you suggest) and they are located in the 50 km radius of Imilchil. As far as I know good quality specimens are mined in at least 6 of them. Some of those localities are in the distance of 70km from each other! The name of locality "Imilchil" is customary - there are no minerals there. The closest to Imilchil "mineral source" is about 20 km from the city. So the name "Imilchil" is used as usually in such cases because it is the biggest city in the region and it is not exact but comfortable (everyone knows where it is). There are many other examples of such use of names of localities even im Morocco - Auli - is really called Sidi Ayed and is 15 km from Aouli, Jorf is really Hameda (10km difference) Bou Azzer - most of the specimens come from mines 10-15 km from there, etc etc. Our reports are short and general, it is not possible to write there about everything. We are goelogist and we write more detailed articles to the magazines such as the newest Mineralogical Record and a few last issues of Mineralien Welt (one of them about Bou Azzer) If you say we were only in Imilchil town to buy minerals you can have look at the photos and you will see some localities there such as Tizi'n'Ouazane and vicinty Bab'n'Ouayad. If you have any other questions about localities in Morocco where we have been we will be happy to answer. By the way I really like this forum, it seems to be very living, I regret my French is so poor... Best wishes to everybody!!! Tom