FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Peter Megaw]

This thread was fired by the "silver wulfenite" question...

Richard Bideaux, who studied wulfenite extensively thoughout his career/life, used to maintain to me that although synthetic PbMoO4 was colorless, truly colorless natural wulfenite was extremely rare. He noted most Tsumeb material, although very palid, still shows some color.

Shortly before he died I acquired 5 pieces of wulfenite from the West Camp of Santa Eulalia, Chihuahua, Mexico that appears completely colorless...see picture. Richard agreed with that assessment and noted he had never seen larger. (He was however astonished to see yellow mimetite with it... noting that the mimetite should be colorless as well!)

I'm interested who has seen examples of colorless wulfenite from other localities, or perhaps it might be more interesting to see how much of the spectrum can actually be covered by colored wulfenites...whether by iniclusions or chemistry. ROY is easy and G not difficult. True BIV anyone???

[Jordi Fabre]

Casually, in the last Tucson Show and in an obscure Hotel's room I got a colorless Tsumeb Wulfenite, really large, about 2.5 cm. Unfortunately I haven't it, but although I'm not sure, I have the idea that I did a photo of it. If I find it, I will publish it here.

Hopefully it helps,

Jordi

[Jordi Fabre]

I'm sorry, finally I have not the photo of the colorless Wulfenite from Tsumeb.

Jordi

[Pete Richards]

Peter,

Your picture really amazes me! I presume that between you and Richard Bideaux, there is no uncertainty about it's being wulfenite....

[Peter Megaw]

Pete...we zapped it...it is.

BTW do you still have those cool drawings of the calcite on calcite "mariposa" growht from Santa Eulalia...I would like to use them in a paper....with credit of course

[Jordi Fabre]

Pete Richards tried to publish the message below, but our antispam system avoid it due the email address. I already write it on the way that our antispam system can accept it. Please see: https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=74

BTW, Pete, in Spanish language mariposa = butterfly.

This is the Pete's message:

I got lots a drawings if I can just find them... Can you send me a sketch or something? I'm not sure what you mean by "mariposa" morphology - no hablo Espanol!

Send to rpr(at)heidelberg(dot)edu

Cheers!

[Jojm]

I've got a sample from San Rafael mine in Nevada (mindat.org locality 40175) with very tiny and nearly colorless wulfenites.
There are some others pictures on this locality photo gallery.

[John S. White]

In reply to Pete Richards' query, the Handbook of Mineralogy by Anthony, Bideaux, Bladh and Nichols, list colorless as one of wulfenite's "colors."

[Peter Megaw]

Jojm...cool colorless wulfenite...have you checked the "mimetites" to see whether they might actually be hedyphane?

[Claus]

A colourless Wulfenite from Tsumeb is illustrated at:

https://www.williampinch.com
(link normalized by FMF)

Look under Tsumeb collection and find the Mawbyite & Wulfenite specimen.


All the best

Claus

[vic rzonca]

My first posting, ever, on any forum and I'm not clear on how to post pictures. What would be the coloring agent in Wulfenite?
Hi John.
Hi Mary-Ann.

[MaryFender]

Hi Vic: Happy New Year. Welcome to the best mineral board. Going to Tucson? Maryanne

[vic rzonca]

Hey there Mary Ann,

Yes to Tucson. I'm site man for Granada Ave. Show, next to Danny T's. Can't wait to be in the center of the mineral collecting world again. I agree, best board, Thanks Jordi.
Vic

[Jordi Fabre]

Hi Vic, welcome here! To know more about how attach images, please use:
https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=20

and

https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=89

Jordi

[John S. White]

Welcome Vic. So nice to have you aboard, I know you will enjoy this Forum and that you will have lots of good things to contribute to it. There seems to be a lot of interest in examples of mineral collecting in the field and I know you have done a lot of this in New England.

WRT your question, wulfenite comes in just about every color imaginable, and I doubt that anyone has really studied the causes of its colors very much. The variety eosite is an exception and it contains circa 1.28% vanadium in place of molybdenum and is bright red. The locality for this material is the Wheatley mine, Chester Co., Pennsylvania. The vibrant red color of Red Cloud mine, Arizona, wulfenites is alleged to be due to trace amounts of chromium (130 ppm) and there is an obscure reference in the Min. Record index (not found in the book itself) to black auriferous wulfenite from the Old Yuma mine in Arizona. Finally there are reported to be gray and black wulfenites from Bleiberg, Austria, where the color is due galena inclusions. So you see, Vic, the answer is not a simple one.