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Ongoing Research:
 
The Spheres Project
Best Website for Herkimer Diamond Information - Made Possible by Collector Donations
The information, and photography, on this website is copyright protected by W. David Hoisington, Ph. D. unless another author/photographer is cited.
Welcome to the New Herkimer Diamond Story!
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Every year we will take on one of the unresolved problems in the Story about Herkimer diamonds. For 2016-2018 it is the spheres project. If you have found any type of curved crystal feature in the Herkimer Mining District, please send us a photo, or a sample donation.
The Spheres, Disc Faces
and Curved Features
The spheres, disc faces and the curved features have now been found at 3 mines: AD, LF and TCR.  It is expected that they will be found at all mines, in some form.  But we still know little about them. The research suggests that these curved features are a product of the quartz - hydrocarbon interaction during the growth of Herkimer diamonds.
Quartz & Hydrocarbon Quartz & Hydrocarbon Contact Us Contact Us
Updated - 03/09/2019
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There is quite a large variation in the forms of curved features. To date (winter 2017/2018) we have over 1000 photos of curved features with more to be added.  To understand these variations and their connection to the Oil and Seed Crystal theory requires considerable research time but these features are the best candidate for physical support of the Oil and Seed Crystal theory.  The variation in the curved features suggests that the quartz interacted with the hydrocarbons (and associated fluids) during the growth of Herkimer diamonds while the hydrocarbons changed, degassed, eventually becoming the hard pyrobitumen (inaccurately labeled anthraxolite) that is most common in the Herkimer Mining District. To see read more see the spheres and curved features research page. 
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Thank you Shannon Haley Wilbur for the donation of 30 samples from the Fonda region.1/05/2019 and 3/2/2019 Check out her Facebook.
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