Dreyerite

Can you help make this a better article? What good localities have we missed? Can you supply pictures of better specimens than those we show here? Can you give us more and better information about the specimens from these localities? Can you supply better geological or historical information on these localities?

Below are some first notes I have made about Dreyerite. This entry and thread has been made as a place holder for information that you will hopefully contribute about Dreyerite.

If you have questions about the format that such an article should have, go the the welcome topic at the top of the Best Minerals forum and read what has been posted there. Also take a look at some of the more mature articles that have already been written like Rhodochrosite, Adamite, Millerite etc. You will need also to pick out other images of Dreyerite that will go into the article.

There is only few info on Dreyerite and i am lucky that we have some detailed descriptions at our local museum including photographs and records from Dr. Dreyer. Nevertheless any input is welcome!

Cheers
Roger



Dreyerite
BiVO4, Tetragonal



The very rare Bi vanadate Dreyerite was discovered in the year 1978 by Dr. Gerhard Dreyer, a german mineralogist
who was an assistant professor at the Mainz university. The mineral occurred in clefts of a silicified fossil wood of permian age which was found southeast of the village of Hirschhorn in Rhineland-Palatinate. Besides other minerals Dreyer noticed "straw-yellow, dirty-yellow to brownish-yellow" crystals which were initially identified as 'Bismite'.

But first analyses revealed their composition to be BiVO4 and the crystal system to be tetragonal - and that this mineral hadn´t been found in nature until then. Together with E. Tillmanns Dreyer carried out chemical, mineralogical and crystallographical tests for an exact description and submitted the results to the IMA for approval as a new mineral. He suggested the name to be 'Bisvanite'.





Before approval by the IMA Gerhard Dreyer died in a tragic car accident during a scientific field trip. In consequence the name of the new mineral was changed to 'Dreyerite' to honour one of the most profound connoisseurs of Palatinan mineralogy, geology and mining history.


Dreyerite is only known from a very few places worldwide. The probably best specimens - although also micro crystals as had been found at the type locality - have been described from the Clara mine at Oberwolfach, Black Forest, Germany. Last but not least in 2009 Dreyerite has been described from the Schneeberg, Erzgebirge area.

References:
Belendorff, K. (2009): Dreyerit und Rhabdophan-(Nd) aus Schneeberg, Erzgebirge. Mineralien-Welt 20 (3), 27-29. (in German)
Dreyer, G.; Tillmanns, E. (1981): Dreyerite: natural, tetragonal bismuth vanadate from Hirschhorn/Pfalz. Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Monatshefte 1981, 151-154. (in German).
Kolitsch, U., J. Gröbner, G. Blaß, H.-W. Graf und A. Pring (2005): Neufunde aus der Grube Clara im mittleren Schwarzwald (II): Dreyerit, Gasparit-(Ce), Klinobisvanit, Kobaltkoritnigit, Metatyuyamunit, Roscoelith, Sengierit, Vésigniéit und Wakefieldit. Lapis 30 (9), 35-39; 58. (in German)
unpublished reports and photographs from the archive of the Pfälzisches Bergbaumuseum Imsbach e.V.


Germany

Hirschhorn, Katzweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

The material from the type locality at Hirschhorn is scarce and only a few samples are kept in Mainz and in the USA. The Dreyerite occurred there as small yellowish tabular crystals or radial crystal aggregates together with native Silver, Baryte, Uraninite and other secondary arsenates and vanadates in clefts and fissures of silicified Dadoxylon sp.




Clara Mine, Oberwolfach, Baden-Württemberg




Güldener Falk Mine, Schneeberg District, Saxony

We need someone to tell us about the dreyerite from this locality and infos/history about & pictures.


More references can be found at the mindat-page for Dreyerite.



Edited 9 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2009 07:18PM by Roger Lang.

Hi Roger,

I like the extra information about the type material - however I am wondering if it is better that this information goes on the page for dreyerite rather than here? What do you, and others, think? I'm not 100% against it, I just wonder if it fits in with the style of the rest of the site.

Also... can you upload the photos directly to mindat - once the final "best minerals" system is in place external image links won't work (we don't like external images because we can't control whether they will still work in 10 years time).

Jolyon

Roger,
Probably the picture of the spectra and the picture of Gerhard Dreyer should not be directly in the article, but might be better linked to it so that is a user wanted to access them, all the would have to do would be to click a linked word or phrase like we do with the locality images.. An interesting arrangement and certainly demonstrates how flexible our articles can be if we need them to be. A good effort. Now hurry up and do 500 more, but remember don't spend more than 60 hours a week on this project!

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Hi Jol and Rock,
thanks for the comments. Jol, i did not upload some of the pictures until now as i first wanted to know your opinion on this format. Also, where to put the pictures of Dreyer and the spectrum - which category? Under the locality (as additional info) or under Dreyerite? What would you think?

I will follow Rocks suggestion and put the spectrum and Dreyer picture only as a word link in the text later. I am open for any discussion of course and await your input.

Cheers
Roger

Dreyer - other - personal
Spectrum - other - miscellaneous

@David .. done, thx, .. BTW if you want to put some of the infos to the dreyerite page please go ahead

@all .. please have a look, i restructured according to your suggestions,

cheers
Roger



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2009 07:34PM by Roger Lang.