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)

[Dave S.]

Thank you all! Some more interesting notes:

The Florencite-(Ce) in the pics also have other suspected rare-earth minerals, or rare minerals in the samples:

Yellow crust: Probably just limonite , but might be, or contain Liebigite ( a hydrated carbonate), Kasolite ( lead/ uranium neosilicate), or massicot (lead oxide).

Bladed pink crystals(in the last pic, just right of center): I suspect these criss-crossing bladed crystals may be synchysite-(Y) a rare-earth carbonate of the element yttrium.

Black, metallic, mass ( not in any of the pics ) : I suspect this slightly irridecent, stringy mass to be part of the columbite-tantalite group (probably Mangancolumbite, with the elements manganese, niobium, and or tantalum). But may also be another rare mineral called Todorokite.


....More testing, and expertise needed for some of these....

However these specimens also contain Hematite(small black spheres with florencite-(Ce), and red coatings), and chlorite mica (green).