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PhotosMetakirchheimerite - Schmiedestollen dump, Wittichen, Schenkenzell, Black Forest, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

12th May 2016 21:09 UTCCarsten Slotta 🌟 Expert

Metakirchheimerite

Schmiedestollen dump, Wittichen, Schenkenzell, Rottweil, Freiburg Region, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Hi there,

this one seems highly doubtful to me as metakirchheimerite from that location shows never such an intense purplish color. It reminds me of realgar, which is quite typical from there.....

Cheers,

Carsten

13th May 2016 18:01 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

Message sent.

13th May 2016 18:54 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

Realgar is not Fluorescent.

13th May 2016 19:34 UTCChristopher O'Neill

It is radioactive as well - color is actually reddish orange - I don't see purple..

13th May 2016 21:05 UTCCarsten Slotta 🌟 Expert

Christopher, I've expressed myself wrong regarding the color. During many years of collecting at that locality I've only seen ONE confirmed specimen from there. It came from the Sophia Mine and it was directly associated with uraninite and looked very similar to that one from Jachymov http://www.mindat.org/photo-489594.html Your sample looks completely different though.

Has your specimen been analyzed? The radioactivity of the sample is no proof for metakirchheimerite as nearly all of the granite from there is more or less hot. I've just looked it up in the original description of Prof. Walenta which states that Metakirchheimerite shows no fluorescence. It is really hard to tell from your photo what it might be, the only other mineral that comes to my mind is wölsendorfite showing an orange-red color but that's pure speculation without proper analysis. I've seen many mislabeled metakirchheimerite samples in the past, most of them turned out to be mixtures of fine grained erythrite with more common uranium-micas.

Regards

Carsten

13th May 2016 23:29 UTCChristopher O'Neill

Carsten,

I would have to send it up to Kerry Day for EDS.

I usually wait until I have about a dozen specimens to be analyzed and then send the lot.

Regards,

Chris