radioactive mineral photos.. post them!!

POST PICS OF YOUR RADIOACTIVE MINERALS!!!!! first time posting here if you haven't noticed.

Oh help, another project.... I'll put this on my priority list and hopefully eventually work down to it.

Gene

A killer Novacekite from Brumado. Ex Ernie Schlichter.

Uranocircite from Unterlembach, Lower Austria, Austria.
3 mm, c
picture taken under long wave UV-light.
have fun!

Saleeite from Ranger Uranium mine, NT Australia, about 30mm across.

Some itty-bitty metanatroautunite from Lake Boga:


Something I never followed up with analysis - a lot of this metanatroautunite was altered. Any ideas on what it is now?:


Autunite on a piece of pegmatite from the Mount Wills area, northeastern Victoria:


From the same pegmatite, a uranium phosphate replacing a REE accessory mineral. I haven't had it properly identified yet, EDS analysis shows it contains P, U and Al. It'll need some careful XRD to narrow it down from the 10 or so possible species it could be.

Hi

Of course you can post your pics of radioactive minerals - just don't post radioactive photos - US postal service may not let you !!!;)


ok so I 'm being a bit silly tonight - almost looks as if this should have been on the post re posting of radioactive specimens!

Cheers

I think I'll go have another wine !!

Here's a classic, Gummite,Ruggles Mine,Grafton Center,New Hampshire.

Carnotite, Moab, Utah. Specimen size 6 x 5 x 4 cm.

Autunite, Spruce Pine, N.C. this one's kinda HOT



Torbernite, Katanga province, Congo

A killer Saleeite from Australia.

Toby/Chris

Wow!! Those Saleeite specimens are fantastic. Don't think I have seen better from that locality.

Cheers
Keven

Hi Toby!
Your uranium mica is autunite or uranocircite rather then saleeite. Your mineral has wrong colour and wrong shape of crystals.
Compare your mineral with real saleeite of Chris and you'll understand about what I talking.

Here are some of my favorites:
[www.mindat.org] mourite
[www.mindat.org] Tl-carnotite
[www.mindat.org] Th-curite
[www.mindat.org] Curite, Pitchblende, Becquerelite, Schoepite
[www.mindat.org] uramarsite
[www.mindat.org] turkestanite
[www.mindat.org] tuliokite
[www.mindat.org] strelkinite
[www.mindat.org] SrTh-loparite
[www.mindat.org] khlopinite
[www.mindat.org] brannerite
[www.mindat.org] Ba-betafite
[www.mindat.org] real U-dominant betafite
[www.mindat.org] aeschynite-(Y)
[www.mindat.org] orangite

Hi Pavel,

I would agree if only visual id was used but the Ranger Mine does not produce autunite, not that I am aware of anyway (one can always be wrong).

The specimens shown by Toby are classic Saleeite crystals on matrix from the Ranger mine, NT Australia and have been tested, reviewed and loved by many Australian collectors.

I have a specimen that looks even more like Autunite than those show by Toby but they are Saleeite.




And one a bit more like Tobys



Andrew T

Hi Andrew!
Of course you should know better how looks like Australian saleeite, I have only the single specimen of saleeite from Kazakhstan in my collection. But I was learned to distinguish saleeite by the best Russian uranoan mineralogist of all times - L.N. Belova. Add also to this more than 30 years of occupations by practical mineralogy and mineralogy of uranium particularly.

I am SEE and FEEL, that mineral on your photos is some other uranoan mica than autunite and the first one is close to my idea on ideal saleeite colour. I am willing to concede that Toby's photo has absolutely wrong colour due to bad photo camera or lighting, but mineral on the second Ryan's photo (unknown PS) looks like more similar to saleeite, than mineral from Toby's photo. The later looks like metautunite, natroautunite on metauranocircite.

Besides that the conception that "the Ranger Mine does not produce autunite" seems to me softly speaking wrong. Autunite is VERY usual and widespread mineral according to a whole range reasons. I am more ready to imagine big group of Australian collectors who are unable to distinguish autunite from saleeite, then to imagine COMPLETE absence of calcium in ground waters (even Australian) - the only reason which able to prevent autunite formation.

I wouldn't cast aspersions on Australians, most of Russian even professianal uranoan geologists also unable to distinguish even silicate uranoan mineralization from uranoan micas one in field, as show the recent regrettable expirience with Gornoe deposit. Many peoples are catastrophically unobservant.

The most easy way to check saleeite and divide it from minerals of autunite subfamily to use UV lamp - they has quite different fluorescence. This simple equipment will also help you to discover autunite in your Ranger Mine specimens. ;)

our bragging rock, collected July, 2010

12 cm Thorite from the Kemp Prospect, near Wilberforce, Ontario 1.8 kg - it's damaged, but it's big - the gray laths are uranothorite and the piece is liberally covered in pyroxene bits

- we hear from Mark Stanley that he is storing someone's collection which apparently contains a LARGER similar piece - it may be two years before the owner returns to claim the material, so whether or not ours is the largest crystal on the planet remains to be seen.

Pavel, I would tend to agree with your comments however the deposit has had in-depth and ongoing mineral analysis over the life of the mine on both Pit 1 and Pit 3. In addition to the work by the mines mineralogists, Dermot Henry and Bill Birch and their team from Museum of Victoria have undertaken extensive research on the U secondary minerals from Ranger mine - there is no autunite listed.

If you have an opportunity, read the article in the Australian Journal of Mineralogy, Vol5, number 1 June 1999, pg 19-24,

And you are right, there appears to be a lack of Ca in the ground water and does not exist in any of the other listed secondary minerals. The reaction to UV is very different to autunite, the specimens I have are fluorescent in daylight - very stunning.

But I am only a humble amateur mineral collector and will hand the scientific reasons why there is no autunite at Ranger to others from Australia who are much better qualified than I.

All the best Pavel, it is good to have existing knowledge challenged, because only then do new things become evident.

cheers

Andrew T

Well, ok, you made me do it!! Here's my little nugget from Ruggles mine, Grafton, NH. Overall dimensions ar 9.5 x 5 x 4.5 inches (24.1 x 12.7 x 11.4 cm); weight: 9.4 lbs (4.3 kg). The lower half in the photo has a solid layer of "gummite" with U secondaries like uranophane, and the upper half is heavily encrusted with multiple U secondaries, particularly fluorescent autunite. It was buried about 18 inches (45.7 cm) below ground. Field collected August 2005.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2010 04:02PM by Fred E. Davis.

Saaleite from the Ranger mine was used for single crystal work. Microprobe analysis of the crystals found magnesium and aluminum in the crystal.
[rruff.geo.arizona.edu]

Here's a set of Radioactive minerals that I saved my money up for back 50 years ago when I was eleven years old. I believe the kit cost ten dollars or so at that time which was a lot of money for a kid back then. The box measures 19 x 19 x 3cm.