Hey dear community, I hope you all have a weekend that is full of exciting experiences and that your mood is good! In this post, I would like to bring a mineral a little closer and hope you can expand your knowledge a little.
Here you can see two specimens of a rare mineral which is also known as Walpurgite and to date there are only about 30 different locations where the mineral has been discovered. The mineral was first discovered during the 19th century in the Ore Mountains in Saxony and there it was discovered in the Walpurgis areas and in the first descriptions it was mentioned by the mineralogist Albin Weisbach (1833 - 1901) who described it as new mineral with shiny properties and had decided to name it after the place of discovery. Weisbach was considered a discoverer of numerous minerals and he has acquired a huge knowledge in this field and has published numerous works and he has moved a lot in the circles of collectors and, among other things, he was also in contact with the well-known mineralogist August Breithaupt (1791 - 1873). Walpurgite is usually found in uranium-containing deposits and due to the uranium content of almost 20%, it is important to mention that it is a highly radioactive mineral and when handling, you always have to pay attention to the right precautions and in the best case you should always keep it in a sealed container, keep it away from living rooms and always wash your hands thoroughly after contact! Theoretically, it is also interesting as ore because of the uranium content, but this is rarely used together with other accompanying minerals for these purposes and it is particularly popular among collectors or for research purposes and from an economic point of view there are otherwise no interesting areas of application. By the way, uranium was named after the Greek god Uranus, after whom the planet Uranus is also named and was first isolated in the 19th century. Walpurgite is relatively fragile in consistency and the color is mostly yellow and can vary greatly and often the minerals have a surface with a fat-like shine that is somewhat reminiscent of a crust and there are also different crystal shapes.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about minerals! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!