Tantalite-Mn

specimen number:
2102372

location:
Bennett Quarry, Buckfield, Maine, USA

description:
Lustrous metallic crystals of tantalite measuring to 1.0 cm in size on matrix with quartz. This is the manganese rich variety. In good condition.

The Bennett quarry, located on a glaciated hill four miles east of the village of Buckfield in Oxford County, Maine, is a celebrated granite pegmatite deposit famous for its yield of rare lithium minerals, cesian beryl, and tourmaline. Geologically, the site belongs to the Oxford pegmatite field within the Central Maine Pegmatite Belt and features a highly evolved, deeply zoned granitic pegmatite dike injected into metamorphic country rock during the Paleozoic era. The inner core zones of this pegmatite developed massive hydrothermal pockets filled with blocky microcline, quartz, cleavelandite, and rare phosphate minerals, as well as remarkable crystals of caesium-bearing pink beryl, famously highlighted by the October 7, 1989 discovery of a massive, fifty-pound inclusion-free pink beryl crystal cluster named The Rose of Maine. Historically, the outcropping dike was operated intermittently for industrial feldspar and mica by local farmers and early miners starting in the late nineteenth century, gaining significant attention in the summer of 1923 when the Harvard University Mineralogical Department undertook active systematic extraction to recover museum-grade reference specimens. Following decades of sporadic operational pauses and minor leases, the quarry experienced targeted commercial reopenings and advanced artisanal specimen mining during the 1970s and 1980s under specialized operators, and while regular commercial industrial extraction has ceased, the locality continues to see seasonal geological field study and authorized collector digging through 2026.

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