Gormanite

specimen number:
9302375

location:
Big Fish, Yukon, Canada

description:
Excellent example for the species with bluish green crystals very rich on matrix with siderite. In excellent condition.

The Big Fish River area in the northern Yukon Territory of Canada is a remote wilderness locality famous among mineralogists, having gained prominence during exploration rushes in the 1970s and 1980s. Rather than an industrial commercial mine with a formal opening and closing date, it consists of seasonal, helicopter-accessed outcroppings where collection is limited by harsh Arctic conditions and land regulations. Geologically, the area cuts through the Early Cretaceous Rapid Creek Formation within the Blow Trough, a marine sedimentary package composed of alternating phosphatic ironstones, shales, and sideritic mudstones. Epigenetic processes, faulting, and fracturing created vugs and veins that harbor an extraordinary suite of rare secondary phosphate minerals. Gormanite, a rare hydrated iron aluminum phosphate first described from this region and nearby Rapid Creek, occurs here as small greenish blue crystalline aggregates and crusts lining fractures within the ironstone sequence.

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