Wulfenite

Xls to 0.8+ mm diameter. Found 1993. MOB coll.

Thanks to help via the "talk page", the consensus (so far) is that this really is wulfenite.

At first glance this looks similar to the tabular zincite shown in http://www.mindat.org/photo-437368.html But it’s not really hexagonal. In fact it looks tetragonal to me. Compare the shape (not the beauty!) with http://www.mindat.org/photo-112281.html . Also, the environment - a very weathered and vuggy boulder with aurichalcite (http://www.mindat.org/photo-454135.html ), fluorite (http://www.mindat.org/photo-454136.html ), galena and malachite (http://www.mindat.org/photo-454137.html ) and other (unid) Cu and Pb microminerals – seems very unlikely for zincite. It is certainly very different from the environment for the tabular zincite.

In addition, there are two very small xls on the specimen that are esssentially square and look even more like wulfenite (child photos).

According to Dunn p. 645, wulfenite is exceedingly rare at SH and the only environment mentioned is “a fracture surface in granular franklinite/red willemite ore …” So this appears to be a second environment for wulfenite at SH.

Updated with a full res (but cropped) image Dec 2012.


There is a stereo child photo of this view, a "quick and dirty" single focus shot of a very small rectangular xl and also a stacked version in stereo.

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Photo added: 24th Mar 2012