WOW, BLUE HEMIMORPHITE! YEP, A FAKE

In Tucson 2022 at a vendor’s tent (long forgotten the name) I picked up an interesting specimen of hemimorphite that had came from the Ojuela Mine, Mapimi, Durango, Mexico.  The small crystals, associated with goethite, were nicely displayed in a Perky Box. Now, rockhounds with any familiarity of Mexican minerals know that hemimorphite [Zn₄Si₂O₇(OH)₂-H₂O] crystals from Ojuela are quite common at almost any rock and mineral show. In fact, I have several specimens in my collection so why would I need to add another?

“Normal” clear and gemmy hemimorphite from Mapimi, Mexico.  Width FOV !1.0 cm. 

There were several reasons for this purchase: 1) the crystals are well formed and quite attractive; 2) they are blue in color; 3) specimens of blue crystals were selling for “big bucks” in the 2020 Denver show and well out of my budget; 4) I paid a measly $3 for my specimen; and 5) the color of the beautiful hemimorphite was fake-it had been dyed blue!  Now, rockhounds can find dyed “agates” at almost any trinket shop or rock/mineral store but I had never seen dyed hemimorphite.  It turns out that many legitimate mineral dealers, and their customers also had never seen bright blue crystals.

Bright blue, dyed hemimorphite crystals from Mapimi, Mexico.  Width FOV ~1.0 cm. (top two and ~1.5 cm. lower).

In the January 2021 issue of Rock & Gem, Bob Jones, the long-time contributor to the magazine, published an article entitled On the Rocks: Much-talked-about hemimorphite lacks authenticity. Jones fully explained the known history about these fakes and how the fraud was discovered—but not before dealers and buyers had lost money! The following is information abstracted from the article.

The latest case of such fraudulent action is a group of specimens of dyed blue hemimorphite from Mina Ojuela, Mapimi, Durango, Mexico, currently being marketed. This mining area has had an outstanding reputation for producing world-class minerals of great variety for generations. Until we know exactly what has produced these blue hemimorphites, that reputation may be impacted. 

Of course, bright blue botryoidal hemimorphite examples have been found at many locations throughout the world. These are entirely natural. Then, suddenly, brilliant blue crystal specimens of hemimorphite appeared from Mapimi in summer 2020.

Dealers were happy to have something new and exciting as colorful minerals sell well, especially from a locality with a sturdy reputation. Dealers are, by and large, a suspicious lot, and many were cautious of this strange, new color, but evidence of authenticity, including videos of specimens being collected in situ underground, showed they were likely natural. Many dealers bought specimens for resale before the September mineral shows. Their faith proved to be misplaced as the blue hemimorphite was finally proven to be an unnaturally dyed mineral.

Fake specimens showed up in some quantity at the shows held in Denver in September 2020. Many dealers already had plenty of specimens at this point in the year, and it appears some had invested considerable sums in this fake mineral.

 Many dealers conducted tests with positive results. For example, the mystery blue mineral was seemingly impervious to most known solvents and simple testing. One interesting note is a trace of copper had shown up in initial analytical testing. Copper is a well-known blue coloring agent in minerals, so this tended to confirm the blue mineral was probably legit.

Dr. John Rakovan (Miami University, Oxford Ohio) did some preliminary testing with inconclusive results but then did more in-depth testing using Raman Spectroscopy, and this finally revealed the truth. The blue material was a dye that is almost impossible to detect and which is extremely colorfast. This result means ordinary analysis would not dislodge it or reveal its presence. Plus, the specimens’ physical characteristics appeared perfectly natural and explainable, such as blue hemimorphite crystals with snow-white calcite crystals. How was this selective dyeing done? The testing by Dr. Rakovan finally revealed the culprit. What was used is a synthetic blue pigment, called Phthalocyanine Blue BN, an organic dye. This dye is not easy to remove because it is stable, which explains why ordinary chemical tests showed nothing unusual.  

 MR. ROCKHOUND DOES IT AGAIN

Jones exposes fakes

Defines blue hemimorphite

Amazing Rockhound

By the time 2022 rolled around information about the scam had traveled around the circuit and dealers with excess stock sold specimens at great discounts (and probably lost money).  My label, without a dealer’s name, is quite honest as it states “Dyed.”  The specimen has a prominent place on my shelf and is a great object for Show & Tell!

Hemimorphite is a hydrated zinc silicate [Zn₄Si₂O₇(OH)₂-H₂O] that occurs in several environments, colors, lusters, and for decades was confused with the zinc carbonate, smithsonite [ZnCO₃].  The name comes from doubly terminated crystals where the terminations have different faces (hemimorphic development).  The crystals have a white streak, a vitreous luster, ~5 hardness (Mohs), are colorless and transparent to translucent, and come from the oxidized zone of zinc-bearing mineral deposits. With a zinc component of over 50%, hemimorphite is a minor ore of zinc.

In closing, I saw this little ditty on a tee shirt the other day: Duct tape can’t cure stupidity, but it can muffle the sound. 

CHECK OUT THESE WEB SITES FOR DISCUSSIONS ON BLUE HEMIMORPHITE

https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=72793

Fakes & Frauds : Blue Hemimorphite from Ojuela Mine (mindat.org)

 

LAUEITE; ANOTHER PHOSPHATE FROM THE BLACK HILLS & NEW HAMPSHIRE

 

I recently was able to purchase two phosphate micros mounted by Art Smith. One was labeled laueite & rockbridgeite, Big Chief Mine, Glendale, South Dakota, 1977, while the other shows laueite, Palermo #1 Mine, North Groton, Grafton County, New Hampshire, with a date of perhaps 1997.  Both of these mines are famous for their micro secondary phosphate minerals.

The Big Chief Mine (Glendale Mining District) is located not far from the tourist town of Keystone in Pennington County. The Big Chief was never a large producer, in the late 1800s, of primary feldspar and mica and secondary beryl hacked out of a small cut and a short drift in a couple of Proterozoic (Precambrian) zoned pegmatites. However, this small mine has yielded 73 different minerals and varieties including the phosphates olmsteadite, perloffite, and metavivianite that call the Big Chief their Type Locality (MinDat). Recently a beryllophosphate [Ba[Be₂P₂O₈]-H₂O] was described and the Mine became the Type Locality of mineral #4 named loomisite (Yang and others, 2022).  —see BLOG Posting July 29, 2022 https://csmsgeologypost.blogspot.com/2022/07/whitemoreite-black-hills-phosphate.html  

The second laueite specimen was collected from the Palermo #1 Mine. The Graton Pegmatite Field, with the Palermo Pegmatites, is located in the Acadian Orogenic Belt, a tectonic area that represents the Devonian (~420Ma --~360 Ma) uplift of mountains in the northern section of the Appalachian Orogen, around southern Virginia to Newfoundland. This uplift was the result of plate movement as a microcontinent named Avalonia (parts of Europe) was banging against Laurentia (proto North America), and being accreted (the terrane was sticking to Laurentia) while the proto Atlantic Ocean was being subducted under the Laurentian continental plate. Of course, the orogenic event was much more complex that this explanation! What we also know is that the active tectonic zone supplied magmatic plutons, volcanos, hydrothermal fluids, and lots of heat for metamorphic transformation of preexisting rocks. One primary mineral that was subjected to heat and fluids was most likely the lithium iron phosphate, triphylite.

Laueite [Mn⁺⁺Fe⁺⁺⁺₂(PO₄)₂(OH)₂-8H₂O], a brightly colored mineral compared to its precursor triphylite, displays colors from honey to amber, to various shades of orange, and yellow. Crystals are tiny rhombs or wedges with lengths usually less than 2 mm, have a vitreous to resinous luster, and are transparent to translucent.

Laueite is not common from pegmatite mines in the Black Hills with MinDat listing a half dozen localities (including the Big Chief) and only three photos shown, all from the Tip Top. Roberts and Rapp (1965) stated “yellowish-orange crystals of laueite up to 1/16 inch in size occur in vugs intimately associated with strunzite and altered triphylite at the Big Chief Mine.”  In 1974 Roberts, Rapp, and Weber noted that laueite occurs on rockbridgeite …at several pegmatites in the Keystone and Custer Districts…especially at the Tip Top…and Big Chief.” 

Laueite crystals from vugs in rockbridgeite and collected from the the Big Chief Mine.  Bottom photomicrograph length of crystals ~.6 mm. Top cluster maybe ~.3 mm.  Note terminations.  

The Palermo No. 1 Mine has produced a substantial number of laueite specimens. The micromount in my collection has two tiny vugs: 1) a 2 mm long void filled with a jackstraw arrangement of .1 to .2 mm, small (very small), translucent, amber crystals; some with rhomb terminations; and 2) the adjacent second vug has larger (~.9 mm), amber to gold, elongated, striated rhomb crystals. Occasional needle-like strunzite (hydrated manganese iron phosphate) also show up in bottom two photos.. 

 

This has been an interesting project for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the size of the crystals. Photography was difficult and my photomicrographs are the best that I could achieve. The pegmatites of the Black Hills and New England have produced an amazing number and variety of minerals, many of them being ”micro crystals.”  I hope to have access to additional micromounts in the future.

REFERENCES CITED

Roberts, W.L. and G. Rapp, Jr., 1965, Mineralogy of the Black Hills: South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Bulletin Number 18.

Roberts, W.L., G. Rapp, Jr., and J. Weber, 1974, Encyclopedia of Minerals: Von Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York.

Yang, H., Gu, X., Gibbs, R. B., and Scott, M. M., 2022, Loomisite, IMA 2022-003, in: CNMNC Newsletter 67. European Journal of Mineralogy: 34.

ROSCHERITES, THE BLACK HILLS, AND A DANCE IN THE WIND

 

I find my happiness in doing. To paraphrase an old Persian scholar--A Minnesota lake, a boat, a rod and reel, a can of worms, beside me in the wilderness.  Be happy for these moments for they are your life. 

If you are a fan of the great outdoors, you have probably noticed that you feel happier beyond the confines of your home.

This little tidbit of wisdom is not my original writing; however, I suspect all rockhounds probably have “thought this” and just neglected to place it on paper.  Instead, we waited for Michael Bassey Johnson to publish such in Song of a Nature Lover. He also noted that “it is scientifically proven that flowers make you feel better?  And even just looking at pictures of nature lowers your stress level?”  

Orchids on the window sill lower my stress level!

That is one reason that my office is crowded, and I mean crowded, with paintings, sculptures, do dads, and photographs of “nature.”  In fact, my wall time piece sounds like a Minnesota loon every hour. No cuckoo for me.   

A print by Terry Redlin: Pure Contentment. Was I there, or was this a dream?  

From my desk chair I look directly at seven framed prints by South Dakotan Terry Redlin. They all remind me of past experiences, both real and in my dreams.  I look to them for inspiration in releasing words and thoughts from the back recesses of my mind.  For example, how do specimens of roscherite (a tiny secondary phosphate) from the Tip Top Mine in the Black Hills compare with specimens from the mines in Maine?  I need to check that out—and off I go. Yea, I know my mind works in mysterious ways and I am again reminded of Michael Bassey Johnson:  “I saw a tree dancing in the wind, and it said to me, I’m not doing this to entertain you, but to remind you of what life is — a dance in the wind!”  That sort of sums it up for my great life thus far, a dance in the wind!

Front Range, Colorado: A dance in the wind.

So, these thoughts bring me back to roscherite, a beryllium phosphate with additional calcium and manganese cations: Ca₂Mn₃Be₄(PO₄)(OH)₄-6H₂O.  I am most familiar with roscherite from the Tip Top Mine in Custer Counter, South Dakota. This former tin (cassiterite), mica, lithium, feldspar, beryl (beryllium)  mine is the Type Locality for something like 12 colorful phosphate minerals and tens of others are mostly hidden away in vugs and fractures; most are microscopic, but all seem to have beautiful crystals. The pegmatite at the Tip Top, like most others in the area, is related to the 1.7 Ga Harney Peak Granite that forms the core of the Black Hills (Lufkin and others, 2009). Tom Loomis, he of Dakota Matrix fame, is the mine owner.

Roscherite usually appears as tiny rounded spherical grains with a variety of colors possible—red, orange, brown, brownish yellow, yellowish green.  They have a measured hardness of ~4.5 (Mohs), sort of a greasy to resinous luster, and leave a white streak.  Tom Loomis at Dakota Matrix has stated that the Roscherites at Tip Top are crystallized in a range of colors and the lilac colored crystals may be Zanazziite, the Mg member. My specimen from the Tip Top has tens of tiny greenish to yellowish spheres clustered together on a quartz matrix. They are very pretty crystals, but small.

 

Photomicrographs off roscherite crystals on a quartz matrix collected at Tip Top Quarry.  Individual crystals are sub-millimeter in size, ~.5 mm.

I recently was able to purchase a couple of micromounts (roscherites) put together by Art Smith: one from the P.Y. Estes Quarry, West Baldwin, Cumberland County, Maine, and the other from the Black Mountain Quarry, Rumford, Oxford County, Maine.  Both specimens were collected by Gene Bearss, a noted collector of minerals from the mines of New England, and a member of the Micromounters Hall of Fame.

The Estes Quarry is an aggregate excavation located in southwestern Maine and has been extensively studied by Thompson and others (2000).  They described the exposed granite pegmatite as alternating layers of fine-grained pegmatite, coarse -grained pegmatite, and sugary aplite.  The rock forming minerals are albite, microcline, muscovite, and quartz.  MinDat lists 63 valid minerals known from the quarry including a very large suite of accessory minerals and secondary phosphates associated with triphylite.  Among the more common accessory minerals are beryl, columbite, and columbite; however, the quarry is best known for its assemblage of rare secondary phosphate minerals.

Thompson and others (2000) described the beryllium phosphate roscherite as microcrystals with a wide variety of habits: single, composite, bow-ties, fans, botryoids, and drusy encrustations. The crystals are a variety of colors ranging from colorless and white to many different shades of green, yellow, and amber. Roscherite is one of the latest minerals to crystalize in the pegmatite paragenesis (sequence in which the minerals form).

However, since Thompson and others (2000) published their seminal paper, much has been discovered in the roscherite arena. It seems that in the first decade of this century several studies were able to identify new roscherite-like minerals with strings of beryllium and phosphate tetrahedra anions with different amounts and kinds of the cations Ca, Fe⁺⁺, Fe⁺⁺⁺, Mn, Zn, Mg.  MinDat described these Roscherite Group minerals as “complex monoclinic or triclinic metal-beryllium phosphate (with one arsenate).” These Group minerals (eight of them) are often tough to visually identify (at least to an ole plugger like me).

Photomicrographs of a vug in matrix from the Estes Quarry; width FOV ~5 mm. The green botryoids are greifensteinite while the orangeish crystals in the lower portion are eosphorite (I presume).  I don't have the slightest idea about the light colored, mushroom- looking, mass in the upper portion of the print.

 

I believe these crystals are eosphorite in the lower part of the vug.  Almost impossible to see are the exceedingly tiny crystals of graphite scattered on the eosphorite.  The vug in these five photomicrographs also contains other unknown minerals I simply cannot identify.

 Another small vug (width ~1.8 mm) filled with an unknown.  It might be the same as the unidentified mass in the upper photomicrographs.

So, what do these studies mean to roscherite identifications form the Estes Quarry?  Well, there is a good answer for that question if you can locate a copy of the abstracts for the 30^th Rochester Mineralogical Symposium and zero in on a paper by Nizamoff and others (2003): specimens from the Estes quarry…exhibit a considerable range in composition from roscherite  to greifensteinite and are associated with beryllonite, childrenite-eosphorite, and muscovite.  MinDat, in its list of minerals for the Estes Quarry, noted that all roscherite-like specimens should now be listed as greifensteinite, a group mineral that is isostructural with roscherite—same crystal structure but a different chemical composition.  In this case ferrous iron with a +2 oxidation state has substituted for manganese [Ca2Fe₅Be4(PO₄)(OH)₄-6H₂O].  Again, visually the two minerals look similar and have fairly identical properities.  One may need a microprobe to distinguish between the two!

Sub-millimeter crystals from the Black Mountain Quarry of greifensteinite scattered on albite crystals.

My second micromount was collected from the Black Mountain Quarry, Rumford, Oxford County, Maine, also by Gene Bearss, with identified roscherite.  The pegmatites near Rumford are part of the Oxford County pegmatite field and “are situated in the Central Maine Belt, a belt of meta-sedimentary rocks that were deposited in the Late Ordovician, Silurian, and earliest Devonian periods. These rocks originated as marine sediments deposited in a deep-water basin, the Central Maine Basin, immediately before and during the Acadian orogeny (Bradley et al. 2000). Deformation and metamorphism of the lithified sediments took place during the Acadian, Neoacadian, and Alleghenian orogenies” [Devonian through Permian Periods; ~375 Ma-- 260 Ma] (Falster and others, 2019).

The Black Mountain pegmatite is well-known for opaque pink rubellite variety of elbaite tourmaline fans in lepidolite and quartz.  MinDat lists 57 valid minerals known from the pegmatite including one Type, kosnarite.  This phosphate was named to honor Rich Kosnar, a Colorado Mineral Dealer (Mineral Classics).

Nizamoff and others (2004) stated, “the Black Mountain, Rumford Maine, samples yield compositions ranging from greifensteinite to roscherite with virtually no Mg composition [zanazziite].” MinDat has two photos of greifensteinite only but does list roscherite as occurring in the quarry.  I cannot locate the paper that made the decision about greifensteinite occurring as the dominant Roscherite Group mineral. Thompson (1998) in his guide to Maine minerals stated that the localities Buckfield, Newry, Paris, and Rumford (Black Mountain) had yielded Roscherite Group specimens. At that time, I believe the term Roscherite Group was informal and referred to three minerals:  roscherite, the manganese analog, greifensteinite the iron analog, and zanazziite, the magnesium analog.

King (1988), in his studies of the nearby Dutton Pegmatite, noted a series of alterations and replacement in the parent rock. The sodium beryllium phosphate mineral beryllonite was attacked by calcium-bearing fluids with the sequence of alteration as: beryllonite, hydroxylherderite, rhodochrosite, eosphorite, and manganese-rich? roscherite.

The specimen in my collection has exceedingly tiny crystals (submillimeter) of what I presume is greifensteinite scattered on albite feldspar.

I suppose this little exercise has taught me that: 1) unless I have access to electronic gizmos it might be best to refer any unknown roscherite-like specimens to Roscherite Group;  2) one ole plugger can have a great time learning about minerals and the unknown; and 3) "A life spent in nature is a life well lived” M B. Johnson.

REFERENCES CITED

Bradley, D. C., R. D. Tucker, D. Lux, A. G. Harris, and D. C. McGregor, 2000, Migration of the Acadian orogen and Foreland Basin across the northern Appalachians: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1615.

Falster, A.U., W.B. Simmons, K. L. Webber, D.A. Dallaire, J. W. Nizamoff, and R.A. Sprague, 2019, The Emmons Pegmatite, Greenwood, Oxford County, Maine: Rocks & Minerals vol. 94, no. 6.

King, V.T., 1988, Beryllium phosphate alteration at a Newry, Maine, pegmatite: Contributed Papers in Specimen Mineralogy: 14th Rochester Academy of Science Mineralogical Symposium, Rocks & Minerals, vol. 63, no. 2.

Lufkin, J.L., J.A. Redden, A. Lisenbee, and T. Loomis, 2009, Guidebook to the Geology of the Black Hills:Golden Publishers, Golden, CO.

Nizamoff, J.W., A.U. Falster, C.A. Francis, D.B. Lange, L. Menezes, and W.B. Simmons, 2004, New data on Roscherite -Group minerals from New England, South Dakota, and Brazil:  Contributed Papers in Specimen Mineralogy: 30th Rochester Academy of Science Mineralogical Symposium, Rocks & Minerals, vol. 79, no. 5.

Thompson, W.B., 1998, A collector’s guide to Maine mineral localities, 3^rd Ed., Maine Geological Survey, Natural Resources Information and Mapping Center, Dept. of Conservation.