“FOV ~ 4 X 5 1/4 cm wide. Thanks to Jean-Pierre Beckerich. A fragment of this specimen was XRD confirmed (as UK113) at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Unlike most niveolanite which - true to its name - looks like snow-white wool, the color here is distinctly yellowish. This might be due to staining, but it doesn't look like that in the closeup photos. Compare with the more typical snow white variety: http://www.mindat.org/photo-257750.html Out of view there is a great deal of unaltered petersenite-(Ce) (see child photo), but only a couple of terminated xls. Also out of view are "beehives" of tan/gray catapleiite with a bit of franconite in the interstices. Other specimens have (verified) franconite directly associated with the niveolanite. But here, most of the fuzzy white stuff is "short hair" niveolanite or (in very small amounts) dawsonite. This specimen came from the Poudrette pegmatite. ”

“FOV 6.6 x 4.0 mm. This is a close-up child photo. Individual fibers reach ca 7 mm, but their whole length did not fit into this photo. The color of the fibers in this photo ranges from nearly pure white, which is characteristic of niveolanite, to fairly deep yellow. It isn't clear - even under a scope - if the yellowish color is a stain or just an inherent variation, but it should be noted that staining isn't evident on the other minerals on the specimen. (There are even more deeply colored fibers on the specimen. I chose to photograph these because this part of the specimen is a bit cleaner than the rest. Other sections have quite a bit of dust and other debris - presumably from the blast that freed this material - which makes for messy photographs. As it is, the stacking SW got rather confused in several areas of the image. Removing the debris is not really an option. The one time that I tried, I blew away some of the niveolanite, which is actually toxic.) There is a sibling stereo version of this image. ”

“FOV 4.0 x 6.6 mm. This is a stereo sibling photo. Fibers to 7 mm (not completely shown in the photo.) If you look closely, you will notice that the stacking software got rather confused in several areas, which resulted in ugly "blob" artifacts. I tried to "fix" some of these, but was not able to do so completely. ”

“FOV ~ 4 x 5 1/4 cm. This is a stereo child photo. ”

“This is a child photo (of a niveolanite parent). This photo just samples some of the petersenite-(Ce) associated with the niveolanite. The pinkisk, gemmy, xls are somewhat crudely terminated and/or broken and/or coated (perhaps by incipient calcioburbankite). ”

“FOV 6.3 x 4.3 mm. This is a close-up of some of the more deeply colored nivealonite fibers. There is sibling stero version of this image. ”

“FOV 4.3 x 6.3 mm. this is a close-up stereo sibling photo showing some of the mosre deeply colored niveolanite fibers. ”