Vantasselite

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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?

Vantasselite
Al₄[OH|PO₄]₃-9H₂O Orthorhombic

Vantasselite from the Type Locality, Bihain Belgium, FOV 0,8cm	© Harjo

Vantasselite has been described in 1986. In the late seventies on the dumps of an abandoned coticule mine near the small village of Bihain, white micaceous crystals where found that were at first sight identified by collectors as Wavellite. Lateron they were recognised as a new species, and Vantasselite was described by A.-M. Fransolet.
Vantasselite is orthorhombic, and the structure is related to that of Vashegyite and Matulaite. It occurs as fine radiating lamellae up to 8 mm, and as spherical aggregates of free-standing terminated crystals up to 3 mm in diameter (this form is extremely rare !) on metamorphosed argillaceous rocks containing so-called Coticule.
The name of this mineral is in honour or Professor Dr. R. VAN TASSEL, an eminent Belgian mineralogist. He is still an active member of the mineral club from Antwerp (Mineralogische Kring Antwerpen)
[Rik Dillen]


Vantasselite
Belgium
Luxembourg Province, Stavelot Massif, Vielsalm, Bihain

FOV 0,2cm	©

Many good specimens have been collected over the years, especially the specimens where Vantasselite is sitting alongside nice light yellow-green Variscite spheres are very nice. Sometimes large plates can be found covered with flat rosettes of Vantasselite. Apart from Vantasselite Wavelite is especially abundant on the dumps. Opportunities for finding good specimens of Vantasselite on the dumps near Bihain are still quite good today and Bihain remains the best locality delivering the best examples of Vantasselite worldwide.
[Harjo Neutkens]


Vantasselite
Belgium
Luxembourg Province, Stavelot Massif, Vielsalm, Ottré

Can anyone help us with information and photographs of specimens from this locality?


Vantasselite
Germany
Hesse, Wetzlar, Weilburg, Esserhausen, Mark Mine

A small abandoned iron mine.
Located near Essershausen, about 5 km SE of Weilburg/Lahn.

Can anyone help us with information and photographs of specimens from this locality?


Vantasselite
Germany
North Rhine-Westphalia, Sauerland, Meschede, Bestwig, Föckinghausen Quarry

Can anyone help us with information and photographs of specimens from this locality?


Vantasselite
Japan
Honshu Island, Kinki region, Mie Prefecture, Iseji

Can anyone help us with information and photographs of specimens from this locality?


[Harjo Neutkens 2009]



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Edited 13 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2010 11:31PM by Harjo Neutkens.

Harjo, I think Ill get a copy of Strunz or Fleischer and start checking off what has been worked on. Good stuff.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Harjo,
How much of the stuff was collected? Can they still be collected? How much of the stuff was collected?

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Updated, that is, for Bihain, the TL, for the other localities I need info from others.

Harjo, What we should strive for in these articles besides pictures of the best specimens we can lay our hands on is to capture the expert knowledge that all of us have in certain limited areas. Ideally we would want to get the guys five guys and or dealers who dug and or handled the most specimens of this material and grill them and squeeze out of them all they knew about the mineral. I often find myself guilty of not putting enough "beef" into the articles because I am to lazy to find out who these five guys were and grill them about the mineral from that locality. I find that expert knowledge is usually locality wide rather than just species wide and I can often find the guys or at least know who to ask about who the real experts are for particular localities.

But, we have so much to do here I rationalize that I should not spend too much time on any particular species/locality and it will be far better if we get as much up as we can doing what we can. You notice that the more species/localities we get posted, the more people come through to help with the beef? These people usually know a lot more than the snippets of information they are offering and ideally we should try and wring as much expert knowledge out of them as we can and put it in the articles. I bet if we suddenly put up 500 new articles, we could not keep up with the suggestions for improvement. I am gratified that the Wikipedia process we have started her seems to be working.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Very true Rock.

This is truly one the better minerals that I liked and enjoyed studying on my own. I have actually looked into this a lot of times already and though things were practically similar to the others, it held onto something a little deeper as you would consider.

A lot of dedicated groups are right within my are and are really interested with this type. But I am not quite sure how a lot of them would hold up.