WHILE THE GLOBAL TALLY of identified plant and animal species is in the millions, scientists know of only 5,998 minerals. For more than 50 years, mineral collector Ramon S. DeMark has worked to change that, with finds that have expanded not just the mineral list, but also our understanding of where these natural treasures can be found. A retired Navy aviation officer, the Albuquerque resident is an advocate for New Mexico’s robust but often overlooked rocky resources and well-known in the rockhounding world for his talent and precision. In 2016, DeMark was digging in a mine north of Deming, near the spire of Cookes Peak, when a glint caught his eye. He unearthed a pair of rocks and gave one to researchers at the University of Arizona, who recently confirmed what he’d suspected: It contained previously unknown minerals. In February, one of them, which occurs as tiny sprays of needlelike, colorless crystals, was officially named raydemarkite to honor DeMark’s years of fieldwork, collecting, and advocacy, including his role in co-launching the annual New Mexico Mineral Symposium.
I got interested in minerals and fossils at an early age. There’s something that appealed to me right from the start. I used to look at rocks and gravel in some of the vacant lots around our neighborhood in downtown Chicago.
I was originally hoping to work in the geologic field. But by the time I graduated, the career field was pretty much flooded with geologists.
I ended up entering the Navy.
When I was first stationed here in Albuquerque, in 1971, I really concentrated my interest in New Mexico minerals. I recognized right off the bat that this was just an ideal place for a mineral collector, because so much is open and accessible.
We have a lot of different geological environments. We have the mountains and the desert. Different environments make for different minerals.
I always was fascinated by the morphology of the crystals—the shapes, the colors, and the variety.
I got involved with what we call “microminerals.” These are minerals that really need magnification in order to appreciate them.
New Mexico had a long history of mining, but they did not have very much interest in minerals as specimens, and particularly microminerals. So I kind of took it on, to develop and look at the mineralogy of the state, with particular emphasis on minerals that may have been overlooked by other people.
At Cookes Peak, I was looking for one mineral called fluorite. I caught a glimmer of this little green mineral and I thought, The heck is that? I ended up picking up two chunks of rock about four or five inches across that had some of this green mineral on it. It was not a mineral I was familiar with.
That’s how raydemarkite came about.
It’s only known in microscopic size. Sprays of these minerals might be a millimeter or so in size, so relatively small.
New Mexico is a wonderful place for collecting minerals, and there’s just a plethora of places still left to visit. We have a lot of accessibility that remains here. It’s just, to me, a fun hobby to be able to dig these wonderful objects out of the ground that have never been seen by human beings. They’re unique and distinctive and just fabulously interesting.
I’ve been playing around with these things since I was 10 years old. I’m still as interested now as I have been for the last 70 years or so.
SEE FOR YOURSELF
View raydemarkite at the New Mexico Mineral Museum, in Socorro. The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources hosts this year’s New Mexico Mineral Symposium at New Mexico Tech, November 7–9.