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Organizations:
- American Federation of Mineralogical Societies
- The Eastern Federation of Mineralogical and Lapidary Societies, Inc.
- The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME)
- USGS Mineral Resources Program
- Minerals Management Service
- United States Faceters Guild
The Basics of Mineral Collecting:
- Rock Collecting: An Educational Home Hobby
- Home Rock Collecting Guide - a useful compilation of links that introduce the hobby
- Beginning Guide to Mineral Collecting, article by Michael Adamowicz on Mindat.org
- Semi Precious Stones Guide
- Guide to Geodes - explains how and where they're formed
Mineralogical Resources:
- Mindat.org - tons of information about minerals and localities. They also have very active forums.
- Handbook of Mineralogy - thousands of PDFs about minerals
- Crystal Forms - you can print these out, cut, fold, and glue to make your own paper crystals.
- RRUFF - database of Raman spectroscopy , X-ray diffraction, and chemistry of minerals
- National Mine Map Repository - you can request maps of old abandoned mines for free here.
- MRDS - Mineral Resource Data System, where you can get GPS data for mines around the country, down to the county. The data can be exported in several formats, including Google Earth's KML format. That can be converted to a file that you can then import into your handheld GPS for out in the field. There is free software that does this, calledGPS Babel. This way you can plan a trip to a certain area, download mine locations to Google Earth, weed out the mines you aren't interested in, save a KML file, and convert it to the file format for your GPS device. Then use your GPS device's software to import the data to your handheld GPS receiver.
- American Mineralogist (archives) - 1916-1999 are free and 2000 and later are only for subscribers.
- "Zeolites of the World" - an exhaustive and free e-book from Mindat.org.
Other Area Clubs, Organizations, Museums, etc.:
- Southeast Federation of Mineralogical Societies, Inc.
- Dixie Mineral Council
- Gem & Mineral Hunters of Virginia - Prince William County
- Mineralogical Society of the District of Columbia
- Chesapeake Gem & Mineral Society (southern Maryland)
- Baltimore Mineral Society
- The Northern Virginia Mineral Club
- Roanoke Valley Gem & Mineral Society
- Shenandoah Valley Gem & Mineral Society
- Gem and Mineral Society of the Virginia Peninsula
- JMU Mineral Museum, Harrisonburg, VA
- Virginia Museum of Natural History - they organize many field trips (often cruises up the Potomac) focused on fossils.