This book is an astoundingly in-depth index of mineral occurances in Colorado. It has more than a few eye-opening revelations. Looking up the radioactive minerals is especially provacative. By bringing together so much information, the stupefying magnitude of efforts to find and identify minerals in Colorado can start to be appreciated.

The books organization should be explained: Individual mineral "chapters" are arranged aphabetically. Within each mineral chapter, occurances are listed aphabetically by county. This format makes looking for particular minerals fairly straightforward--it tells you which counties have the mineral and basically where to find them. As could be expected, publicly accessible occurances are described in more detail than private sites (mines are usually only named).

On the other hand, if you want to find out what minerals are found in particular county, only a short mineral highlights section at the beginning of the book is helpful. County information is parceled out to the individual mineral chapters. Regrouping the information by county would require another book--or a searchable CD.

This book begs to be in database-on-CD form.