Search Mineralpedia – A Mineral Photo Database and Identification Guide

Named for the bismuth (bismut) and iron (Latin: ferrum) in the mineral’s composition. An uncommon mineral that occurs in Germany, the Czech Republic, England, and the United States, among several other localities. It is likely of hydrothermal origin. Associated minerals include quartz, chalcedony, bismuth, cobaltite, arsenopyrite, chlorargyrite, galena, silver ores, and clinobisvanite.

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

Named after Maynard Bixby, the mineral dealer from Utah, USA who provided the first specimens. Bixbyite can be found in lithiophysal, caused by expanding gasses, cavities in rhyolite, and in metamorphosed manganese ore. Bixbyite is an uncommon mineral that can be found in localities in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Sweden, India, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and a few additional localities. Associated minerals include topaz, spessartine, beryl, quartz, Sanidine, pseudobrookite, hematite, and beraunite.

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

Named to honor Dr. Norbert Blaton, a crystallographer and specialist in uranium minerals at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. The type and only locality for Baltonite is at the Jomac mine in White Canyon, Utah, USA. A rare mineral that occurs in gypsum seams in oxidized, roll-front type uranium deposits. Additional associated minerals include boltwoodite, coconinoite, metazeunerite, rutherfordine, azurite, brochantite, carbonate-cyanotrichite, malachite, and manganoan smithsonite. Blatonite is highly radioactive, and will fluoresce a green-yellow under long-wave ultraviolet light.

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

Named for Bob Downs at the University of Arizona. Bobdownsite has two co-type localities at Big Fish River in Yukon Territory, Canada, and in the United States here in the Black Hills of South Dakota at the Tip Top mine. It occurs at Big Fish River in Lower Cretaceous bedded ironstones and shales that are exposed on a high ridge. Associated minerals include siderite, lazulite, an arrojadite group mineral, kulanite, gormanite, quartz, and collinsite. It appears there as colorless, transparent tabular crystals.

Ref. Tate, K. T. et al. and The Canadian Mineralogist August 2011 v. 49 no. 4 p. 1065-1078

Named for French agricultural chemist Pierre Adolphe Bobierre, who first described the mineral. A rare mineral found in only a few localities worldwide including in Chile, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Norway, Portugal, Russia, and Kenya. At the type locality in Mejillones, Chile, and in the Imperial Canyon lava tubes in Kenya, Bobierrite forms from the chemical alteration of guano deposits. Near Edgerton, Minnesota, USA, Bobierrite occurs from the chemical alteration of an elephant tusk, and at the Australian and Portuguese localities as an alteration product from phosphate-bearing minerals.

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

More appropriately spelled Böhmite, this mineral was named for Johannes Böhm, the German geologist who was the first to study the mineral. Boehmite is an uncommon mineral that occurs as a widespread, but never usually well crystallized mineral in localities in France, Italy, Hungary, Norway, New Zealand, the United States, and several others. It forms as a product of aluminosilicate weathering in tropical regions and is often a common component of bauxite, laterite, and fireclay. Also a product of low-temperature hydrothermal decomposition of corundum, nepheline, syenite, or ocean-ridge basalt.

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