Yaogangxian Mine
25.6431° N, 113.3214° E · ± 1 km
Chalcopyrite, Fluorite and Quartz from Hunan, China, with photos of specimens from this locality.
Minerals found here
On the same specimen
A Yaogangxian specimen has a floret of sharp golden chalcopyrite sphenoids, about 3 cm, set on a tabular doubly terminated quartz crystal; contacts are healed and overgrown by quartz faces.
Iridescent chalcopyrite on a glassy, doubly terminated quartz is a rare and aesthetic floater-type piece.
Sources: SRC-162
1 specimen photo(s) from this locality show chalcopyrite with fluorite together. The pairing comes from the photographer's file name and label, so the relationship between the two minerals is not specified.
Chalcopyrite at Yaogangxian Mine
Photo: Robert M. Lavinsky · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
Photo: Robert M. Lavinsky · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
Photo: Robert M. Lavinsky · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
- Formula
- CuFeS₂
- History
- Chalcopyrite is listed among the minerals recorded at this tungsten-tin mine, which also has minor copper, silver, lead, zinc and bismuth minerals; the vein deposit has been mined since 1914 and the Heshangtan skarn deposit since the early 1960s, with specimens reaching western markets in the early 1990s.
Sources: SRC-040
Fluorite at Yaogangxian Mine
Color-zoned cubes with purple octahedral phantoms and teal-blue regrowth zones, perched on quartz or muscovite.
Photo: Robert M. Lavinsky · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
- Formula
- CaF₂
- Morphology
- Cubes and octahedra with phantoms, as clusters on quartz or muscovite
- Typical size
- Crystals up to about 1.8 cm on the photographed plate
- Color / luster
- Purple, green and teal-blue, often zoned with phantoms; purple fluorescence under short-wave UV
- Availability
- Commonly available
- History
- Yaogangxian has been mined since 1914; the photographed plate shows phantoms where a white mineral and purple microcrystals coated faces before blue-teal regrowth
Quartz at Yaogangxian Mine
- Formula
- SiO₂
Sources: SRC-162
Geology of the locality
- Setting
- Tungsten-tin deposit in the contact aureole of the Mesozoic Yaogangxian composite granite pluton, with quartz-vein-type orebodies and a skarn-type orebody (Heshangtan).
- Type
- Skarn, Hydrothermal
- Host rock
- Biotite granite and its contact zones (vein type); Devonian sandstone and skarnized slate (skarn type)
- Region
- Hunan
- Country
- China
Coordinates converted by hand from the degrees-minutes-seconds values on the Mindat locality page (SRC-040), which leaves the decimal field blank. Current mining status is not stated there.
Sources: SRC-040
Sources
- SRC-040 · Database
Yaogangxian Mine, Yaogangxian W-Sn ore field, Yizhang Co., Chenzhou, Hunan, China (Mindat.org)Mindat.org / Hudson Institute of Mineralogy - SRC-162 · Website
Iridescent Chalcopyrite on DT Quartz (Yaogangxian)Mineral Auctions - SRC-187 · Website
File:Fluorite-44127.jpg (Wikimedia Commons file page)Lavinsky, R.M. (photographer) · 2010 · Wikimedia Commons - SRC-188 · Website
Colorful cubic fluorite crystals on quartz, Yaogangxian Mine (seller listing)Fossilera (seller) · Fossilera
Draft data from the Provenite workbook. Check entries against the cited sources before relying on them. Photos are open-licence images from Wikimedia Commons; the author and licence are given with each photo.