Wardite

specimen number:
9302345

location:
Rapid Creek, Yukon, Canada

description:

Choice yellow slightly translucent semi lustrous well-formed crystal without matrix. This is in good condition.

The Rapid Creek area in the Richardson Mountains of northern Yukon, Canada, is one of the world's most renowned remote mineral localities, with its rich phosphate deposits drawing scientific and collector attention primarily starting in the 1970s. Geologically, the region features the Cretaceous Rapid Creek Formation, a thick sequence of phosphatic ironstones, shales, and mudstones deposited in a marine basin. Subsequent tectonic activity, folding, and low-temperature hydrothermal fluid movement allowed secondary phosphate minerals to crystallize extensively within fractures and vugs. Mineralogically, the locality is famous for an incredible diversity of rare species, producing world-class specimens of wardite, a hydrous sodium aluminum phosphate that typically forms sharp, glassy, pale green, bluish, or colorless tetragonal crystals highly prized by global mineral collectors.

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