Wavellite (ATES-0017)

specimen number:
9273182

location:
County Pit, Mauldin Mt., Montgomery Co., Arkansas, USA

description:
Attractive lustrous botryoidal crystallized wavellite across both sides of this meta-chert matrix. In great condition. Classic locality for the species.

The County Pit, located on Mauldin Mountain near Silver in Montgomery County, Arkansas, is an industrial quarry site situated within the Ouachita Mountains. Geologically, the deposit is hosted within the Mississippian-aged Stanley Shale and the underlying Arkansas Novaculite, where intense regional folding and fracturing of the sedimentary layers created structural conduits for phosphate-rich fluids to precipitate secondary minerals. These minerals, most notably wavellite, commonly occur as spherical, radiating aggregates filling open fracture surfaces across a dark meta-chert matrix. Historically, the pit was opened and operated by local authorities to extract fractured chert and shale for use as road construction aggregate and surfacing material. Specimen extraction by mineralogists and field collectors emerged as a significant secondary activity at the site, with the most active periods of specimen production occurring between the 1960s and the 1990s.

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