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Wegscheiderite
Na5(CO3)(HCO3)3 triclinic
USA
Wyoming, Sweetwater County, Green River Formation, Grierson Well #1
“In the Grierson well the new mineral is found at a depth of 1940’ as bladed crystals as much as 5 cm long in massive halite.”
1 The mineral was also found in the drill cores of two other wells where the wells penetrated the Pilkins Peak member of the green River Formation…of middle Eocene age. Trona, nahcolite and halite are also present in these drill cores. Thin sections show that Trona is replaced by Wegscheiderite, which is in turn replaced by halite. The specimen pictured in the American Mineralogist in all its black and white etched glory is rare because no one has bothered to dig down 1940 feet to the layer where the drill core intersected it. Chemically the mineral is soluble and the picture shows freestanding rounded etched crystals almost certainly because the water used in the drilling operation dissolved much of the enclosing halite. The material is almost certainly abundant in this layer and is almost certainly available in some tonnage. The mineral was first found in the Perkins Well No. 1 that is located in the NE quarter Section 32, Township. 15 North, Range 108 W in Sweetwater County where it occurs as a 3-inch stratum (depth 1609’6” to 1609’9”) colored reddish brown by approximately 4 percent organic matter. The Grierson Well # 1 where the largest crystals were found 12.5 miles north west of the Perkins Well #1. 1 The mineral has also been found in the Piceance Basin, Garfield and Rio Blanco Counties, Colorado and in the Biyang Basin, Henan Province, China. The mineral was named after Rudolph Wegscheiderite who first synthesized the compound in 1913.
When Dick Gains was working on the 8th edition of Dana he was looking up the dates for the birth and death of the people for whom the mineral had been named. He could not find any information on Wegscheider. He got on the internet and located the phone numbers of four people named Wegscheider who he thought might be descendants of Wegscheider who were living in Wyoming which was Wegscheider’s home state. The first person that answered the phone was named Wegscheider who was in his 90’s and yes, he was a geologist and yes, he knew the people who had written the description of the mineral. They aparently had not bothered to tell him however that they had named the mineral after him and he was surprised and a little irritated that they had not bothered to tell him about it.
2
1. Wegscheiderite (Na
2CO
3)●3NaHCO
3, a New Saline Mineral from the Green River Formation, Wyoming, American Mineralogist, Vol. 48, 1963, p 400, Joseph J. Fahey & K. P. Yorks, U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, D.C. and Allied Chemical Corporation, Syracuse, New York.
2. Personal communication, Richard Gains, about 1990s.
[Rock Currier, 5 November 08]
Wegscheiderite
Russia
Northern Region, Murmanskaja Oblast, Kola Peninsula, Lovozero Massif, Alluaiv Mt.
Wegscheiderite has been found as coarse-grained specimens with individual crystals up to 1 cm in hyperagpaitic pegmatoids at deep levels of the Mt. Alluaiv mine. Associated minerals were cryolite, villiaumite, kogarkoite and others.
1
1. Lovozero Massif, Igor V. Pekov, p.428 ISBN 5-900395-27-8
[Rock Currier, 23 December 08]
Edited 13 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2009 03:04AM by Rock Currier.
