Description
This specific specimen was previously listed as this video is titled, minus the chemical formula, but the lepidolite isn’t as obvious on this one as the Lepidolite in the video uploaded to ColoRockCo a few days ago… Do you see it?
Its hardness is 6½ and its specific gravity is 2.9. It was first described by August Breithaupt in 1846 for occurrences on the island of Elba, Italy, and named after Pollux, a figure from Greek mythology, the brother of Castor, for its common association with “castorite” (petalite). The name was later changed to the current pollucite.
Its in the Zeolite group, and it typically occurs in lithium-rich granite pegmatites and in association with quartz, spodumene, petalite, amblygonite, lepidolite, elbaite, cassiterite, columbite, apatite, eucryptite, muscovite, albite and microcline.
About 82% of the world’s known reserves of pollucite, according to Wikipedia, occur near Bernic Lake in Manitoba, Canada.
There’s around 176 known localities worldwide on most continents and it’s mined not only as a major Cesium ore, but as a source for Rubidium, Iron, Calcium and Aluminum. The only known location where this has been Colorado before is at the Brown Derby Mine, near Gunnison, but keep an eye out for this important rock near you!
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