Search Mineralpedia – A Mineral Photo Database and Identification Guide

Named after Yaichiro Wakabayashi, a mineralogist who worked for the Mitsubishi Mining Company in Japan where Wakabayashilite finds its type locality at the Nishinomaki mine. Wakabayashilite occurs as fine, fibrous crystals in druses, or coatings of quartz and embedded in calcite. Wakabayashilite has few, but widespread, localities.

Ref. Handbook of Mineralogy, Anthony et al (1995) and MSA at http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/wakabayashilite.pdf

Walentaite, named for Dr. Kurt Walenta, major contributor to the mineralogy of arsenates and phosphates and a Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Suttgart in Suttgart, Germany, finds its type locality from the White Elephant mine here in the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA. Found in few localities, Walentaite is a rare secondary mineral, found at the White Elephant mine as an alteration product of lollingite and triphylite-lithiophilite, and at the Griffin’s Find mine in Australia in the oxidixed zone of a gold deposit.

Ref. Handbook of Mineralogy, Anthony et al (1995) and MSA at http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/walentaite.pdf

Discoverer of Wavellite, English physician William Wavel has the honor of its namesake. Wavellite is associated with crandallite and variscite as a seconday mineral in metamorphic rocks of low-grade as well as in phosphate deposits and rarely in hydrothermal veins. Wavellite is found worldwide in many localities. Readily dissolved by acids.

Ref. Handbook of Mineralogy, Anthony et al (1995) and MSA at http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/wavellite.pdf