Search Mineralpedia – A Mineral Photo Database and Identification Guide

Named after a corruption of the word alabandicus, which was used to describe stones, likely Almandine, that were found or worked on at the ancient gem cutting center in Alabanda, Turkey, which is also considered the type locality. Almandine is the most common garnet and can be found in hundreds of widespread localities around the world including as fine crystals in localities in Austria, Sweden, Norway, the United States, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Australia, and Japan. Generally found in schist and gneiss that formed from regionally metamorphosed argillaceous sediment and pelites, but can also be found in contact metamorphic hornfels, granites, eclogites, sedimentary rock, and as a detrital mineral.

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

Named for Aleksey S. Sakharov, a Russian geologist who worked on the Lovozero massif. Forms as rough, flattened crystals of white to a pale brown. Prismatic crystals form in hydrothermal deposits with natrolite and lamprophyllite at its type and only locality at Lepkhe-Nel’m Mountain in the Lovozero massif on the Kola Peninsula of Russia.

Ref. Minerals and their Localities, Bernard, J.H. and Hyršl, J. (2004)

IMA/CNMNC List of Mineral Names (2009) and Zapiski Vserossiskogo Mineralogicheskogo Obshchetstva 132 (2003) (1), 52

Named for one of the two co-type localities in the Alston Moor District at the Brownley Hill mine in Cumbria, England. The other type locality for Alstonite is at the Fallowfield mine in Northumberland, England. Additional localities include in Wales, Russia, Poland, France, the United States, as well as newer localities in Namibia, Greenland, and China. Alstonite is general found in low-temperature hydrothermal lead-zinc deposits and more rarely in carbonatites. Alstonite will fluoresce yellow under short- and long-wave ultraviolet light.

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