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Eight years ago on the Pasty Cam: 10/31/98^{Printed on Recycled Internet}

Eight years ago this Halloween, the Pasty Cam caught this house in Mohawk all dolled up -- or is it all gouled up -- for the evening. Today our young goblins will battle high winds, low temperatures and a chance of snow.

Morning. Happy Halloween!

Mornin'

That is a great display!

Capn Paul: thanks for the very interesting post about basalt on ystd's what's UP. No, you did not bore us! I, for one, am fascinated by the geology of the area.

For anyone else with children who may be interested, MI Tech has a great summer youth program. My daughter took "field geology" when she was 12. It was excellent--she got to hike all over the Keweenaw and see everything first hand.

You educated me as well, Capn Paul. I have a treasured piece of Mohawkite. I knew it was arsenic, nickel, and copper. (you can smell the nickel) but I didn't know about the cobalt.

Is it true that this particular combination has not been found anywhere else in the world?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

What your smelling is actually the arsenic; that faint metallic garlic smell gives it away every time. As far as the cobalt and nickel, it is there, but in very small quantities. True domeykite is actually 72% copper and 28% arsenic. In the Keweenaw however, it does combine with some silver and very small amounts of nickel and cobalt, which came to be known as Whitneyite and had a pinkish color. Whitneyite though has been thrown out as a mineral name and I believe they lumped everything into domeykite and algodonite, another copper/arsenic mineral.

Actually, the type locality for domeykite is the Algodones Mines, El Algodón, Huasco Province, Atacama Region, Chile. However, it has also been found in Colorado, New Mexico, Germany, France, and the UK. It was first described in the Keweenaw in 1845, but not officially named "domeykite" until I believe 1959. Mohawkite has also been thrown out as a mineral name.

Kosk was asking about how the Isle Royale Greenstone fit into mix fom yesterday. Many of the basalt flowtops also contain gem quality greenstone, also known as Pumpellyite in the geologic world.

Again, I hope I'm not boring anyone to sleep with my love of Lake Superior geology?? I could literally chat for hours about the subject ;-)

Keep it up Capt. very interesting to say the least

Happy Halloween!
Hey Eagle Harbor Troll! Please e-mail me if your out there.

Happy Halloween!
The kiddos here in Eagle River AK will be trick or treating in about 8" of snow.

Happy Halloween, everyone :) It was in the high 60's yesterday..but today, the ghosts and goblins will have to deal with high winds and temps in the 40's.
Connie, guess the kiddies in Alaska could sled, snowshoe, or snowmobile to the houses when trick or treating tonight, eh ;)

Happy Halloween. We had electricity off for about a half hours a little while ago. We have really powerful winds today. Must really some huge rollers in the lake. Hope boats aren't on it.

It is heck-of-a-windy here in the Copper Country today too. Some snow too.

Hi
Astronomy Picture of the Day has a ghostly picture & some interesting facts about Halloween [note, if you look Nov.1, you'll see that picture of the day & would need to go to Archive].
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

I like the concept of the seasons starting on the cross-quarter dates--makes much more sense, weatherwise, to have Oct 31 be the start of winter than Dec 21--that is the middle of winter by the old Celtic system.

thanks capt paul.

I'm wondering why I thought my 'mohawkite' smelled like nickels. I think it's because of my father's coins thrown into a leather pouch as he was working as a door-to-door bakery delivery salesman. I swear the smell is the same. Are there traces of arsenic in coins? Am I losing my marbles?

George is back...hooray!!!!

BOO!!!!!!!!! Scared yet?
Mr. Deb

For the first time in my life, I've been harrassed by trick'n'treaters. Harrassed, because they were obviously unable to count and therefore rang every bell on my hall repeatedly, several times and over and over again.
So unlike what I wrote recently in two separate mails, trick'n'treating has started to happen in Germany, too.

As far as I know, there is no arsenic in coins.

I won't comment on that last sentence Maija ;-)