Originally a micromounter, now I concentrate on more displayable thumbnail and larger specimens of well-crystallized minerals. I collected a lot in the Black Hills, South Dakota, while I worked there for the National Park Service (Jewel Cave National Monument), summers 1983-87 and 1996-99. (My greatest regret from that period is having failed to ask Willard Roberts to sign my copy of Mineralogy of the Black Hills during any of my many visits with him at the S.D. School of Mines.) Pint's quarry, Raymond, Iowa (adjacent to my parents' home territory in Cedar Falls), was a favorite collecting site for many years. The Mt. Carroll quarry, Carroll County, Illinois, was a favorite haunt during the few years that I lived in northern Illinois and belonged to the micromount study group of the Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois (ESCONI). I enjoyed many field trips to the Klein and Conklin quarries near Iowa City, Iowa, with the Cedar Valley Rocks & Minerals Society during the many years I lived in that area. Now I live in Maine, my wife's home territory, and as a member of the Maine Mineralogical & Geological Society in Portland I am slowly learning how one field-collects where there is no public land and commercial properties tend to be off limits.

My photos are available for appropriate, non-commercial use per the Creative Commons Share-Alike license. It's not required, but I would be interested to know via Mindat Private Message when and where someone uses one of my photos.