Colorado Rare Earth Minerals Options

[MikeS]

What time is it?.... IT'S XENOTIME!!!

While we were diggin on the claim on Monday, my longtime friend (and co-owner) was getting into a nice pocket of gemmy smokies when he found a odd crystal we had never seen before. We suspected Zircon because of the crystal shape and it felt very heavy. After a specific gravity test it appears to be Xenotime. It is also on the heavy side of Xenotime which would suggest that the Yttrium in it has been replaced with a heavier mineral/element like Uranium or Thorite. It may have mild radioactivity. If I get the chance to test it for radiation I'll post results. If your wondering how to pronounce Xenotime here is a link with audio: Oxford Dictionaries





The crew and I just before the rare find. (I'm on the left)

[Woody]

Here is a picture of one of my unknown minerals.

It is about an inch and a half long and growing on the side of a broken chunk of Smokey Quartz crystal. It is Semi-translucent and when you hold it up to the light you can see a reddish, purple hue to it. I seen you mention Xenotime and had no idear what that was so I Googled it. At first it looked like a real good possible fit. -Grows in association with other minerals, -normally a dark brown color, -can display a reddish hue to it, -heavier than Quartz. Those all seem to fit nicely and the first picture I looked at had a shape kind of similar to this specimen. But then after studying the description a little more I think it falls out of that category. It is much harder than in the "4" range and the specific gravity of this piece is not nearly high enough. I have to lean to this just being an odd piece of Root Beer colored Quartz with a show of Fluorite and maybe something else in it. It is not Xenotime, but it was fun looking.

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