Malechansk, Lake Baikal Region, Ust'-Orda Buriat Okrug, Transbaikalia, Western-Siberian Region, Russia

This is a thumbnail specimen that Reiner acquired in the late 1960's from Ernst Windisch of World Wide Minerals. The label reads "Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia."

Since the only locality reference for stellerite at Malechansk is from a specimen at the Natural History Museum in Vienna, I thought I'd canvas the membership - would this be the correct location for the specimen?

Locality [www.mindat.org] has completely wrong string. If it located in Ust'-Orda Buriat Okrug it must to be in Irkutsk oblast' and Prebaikalie, on another, opposite shore of Baikal. On this Baikal side any elbaite family tourmaline localities aren't known at all. Only schorl bearing pegmatites are probable here. And I never listen about place "Malechansk" (Малышанск?) here.
I am think, [www.mindat.org] is fantastic locality or wrong, corrupted form of [www.mindat.org] locality.

What about your specimen, look more attentively on it basement. Has it contain inclusions of sulphides, especially sphalerite? If it so, your specimen should to be not from pegmatites, but from base metal vein deposits. And, in any case, more probable locality of your specimen is Zabaikalie, not Prebaikalie.

You can to see typical stellerite from Klichka deposit in Zabaikalie here - [geo.web.ru]

A pink tourmaline (rubellite) from "Malechansk" is offered here: [www.margrafminerals.com]
Looks like a pegmatite tourmaline, so probably from Malkhan pegmatite field (Malchan) from where there are many similar specimens (http://www.mindat.org/gallery.php?cform_is_valid=1&loc=29506&min=3472&cf_pager_page=1).

Fixed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2012 11:50AM by Uwe Kolitsch.

Thanks guys for clarifying, I also had this type of spelling problem with a pollucite, which I determine was from Malkhan pegmatite. The spelling I had was Malkhansk. I had posted the question on this thread:

[www.mindat.org]

regards,
stephanie

"Malkhansk" spelling added to locality description.