Xenotime Mineral

Good day dear Hive community, first of all I would like to welcome you to my new post and hope you have a good start to the new weekend! Today I would like to bring a mineral a little closer and hope you can learn something new.

The mineral that can be seen here bears the name Xenotime and it is a rare group of mixed crystals which can also be counted to the mineral class of phosphates, vanadates and arsenates. The formation can be traced back to volcanic activities and it was first described by the French mineralogist François Sulpice Beudant (1787–1850) who named the mineral after the Greek words Kenos for vain and time for honor. Due to the yttrium content, it is particularly interesting as an ore and it is a mineral with slightly radioactive properties and Xenotime is popular in collectors and otherwise there are no other areas of application due to the rarity. The color is gray, green or brown and you often find it with other minerals such as monazite, synchysite or titanite and in this specimen there is also anatase. The most important places of are Switzerland, Norway, Africa, USA or Norway and were first found on the island of Hidra in Norway.

Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about minerals! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!