FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jean Sendero]

Hope that some of you can help. A friend received from his father a bunch of "ore specimens" from mines mainly across the US and a few outside the US. His father was a mining engineer in the 1950 through the 1990's. There is an abundance of gold specimens but this one specimen kind of caught my eye. It was in the "radioactive" box with chunks of pitchblende the size of a large orange.

Firstly, I believe that the mineral on this specimen is Uranocircite. Can this be confirmed with the attached photographs.

Secondly, anyone would have an idea on the likely locality or provenance ? (USA? Germany? Not Brazil, he never went to Brazil). The matrix is very soft with a "greasy" feel to it, and is of a white to beige color.

Thanks Jean

[Tobi]

Hi Jean,

i really think that this specimen is from the US, it looks like autunite from the Daybreak Mine in Washington.

Cheers!

[Jordi Fabre]

I agree.

[Montanpark]

Morning ;),
just from the look of the xls it also could be uranocircite from Bergen, Vogtland. Look at the matrix - if it is an weathered and bleached granite the matrix could be indicative for the Vogtland occurrence at the Streuberg quarry.

Compare this picture pls:
https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/files/uranocircit_1_707.jpg


cheers
Roger

[Andreas Gerstenberg]

Hi all,

I would not consider this for a Vogtland sample. Portugal maybe but I personally agree to Daybreak mine.

Regards
Andreas

[Jordi Fabre]

[Jean Sendero]

Thank you all,

Autunite instead of Uranocircite, I'll go with it. I was kind of hesitating between both solely based on the physical properties.

For the location, what Tobias mention as the Daybreak Mine in Washington makes sense. I looked on MinDat and saw photo 181527. On that photo, a large piece of matrix is left on the specimen which is identical to the matrix on this specimen.

Cheers

Jean