Search Mineralpedia – A Mineral Photo Database and Identification Guide

Named to honor Gaston Demesmaeker, a Belgian mining geologist and Director of the Geological Department at the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga. Demedmaekerite is a rare mineral that occurs in loxidized selenium-bearing copper-cobalt deposits. It can be found at its type locality in the Musonoi mine near Kolwezi in the Katanga Copper Crescent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and at Zalesi in Moravia in the Czech Republic. Demesmaekerite is fairly radioactive.

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

Named after Aleksander Petrovich Denisov, a Russian investigator of minerals specializing in X-ray investigations at the Kola Scientific Center. Denisovite can be found only in Russia at its co-type localities on Eveslogchorr Mountain and Yukspor Mountain in the Khibiny massif on the Kola Peninsula, and in the Murunskii massif in the Eastern-Siberian region. It occurs in “nepheline syenite in a differentiated alkalic massif.”

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

Named for Jean Marie Francois Joseph Derriks, a Belgian mineralogist who studied the uranium deposit at Shinkolobwe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is the same country where Derriksite finds its type and only locality at the Musonoi mine at Kolwezi in the Katanga Copper Crescent. It occurs there in the oxidized selenium-bearing copper-cobalt deposit. Associated minerals include selenian digenite, chalcomenite, demesmaekerite, and malachite. Derriksite is quite radioactive.

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

Paul Ernest Desautels is the namesake of this mineral as the former Curator of Mineralogy at the National Museum of Natural History in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., USA. Desautelsite is a rare mineral that occurs only in the United States in localities in California, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and in Japan at Kohnomori in Kochi City on Shikoku Island. It occurs as an abundant mineral in fractures in serpentinite breccias with other secondary magnesium minerals in its California localities, and in ultramafic rocks in faults through sediments in Japan.

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