Wavellite is an aluminium basic phosphate mineral with formula Al3(PO4)2(OH, F)3·5H2O.
Distinct crystals are rare, and it normally occurs as translucent green radial or spherical clusters.
Discovery and occurrence
Wavellite was first described in 1805 for an occurrence at High Down, Filleigh, Devon, England and named by William Babington in 1805 in honor of Dr. William Wavell (1750–1829), a Devon-based physician, botanist, historian, and naturalist, who brought the mineral to the attention of fellow-mineralogists.Curtis, Samuel and Hooker, William Jackson (1827).
Memoirs of the Life and Writing of the Late Mr. William Curtis, Curtis's Botanical Magazine; or Flower Garden Displayed, v. 1 (new series), v-xxxii.
It occurs in association with crandallite and variscite in fractures in aluminous metamorphic rock, in hydrothermal regions and in phosphate rock deposits.
It is found in a wide variety of locations notably in the Mount Ida, Arkansas area in the Ouachita Mountains.
It is sometimes used as a gemstone.Gemstones: Properties, identification and use by Arthur Thomas, p. 132.
See also
List of minerals
Apatite, fluoro-phosphate of calcium
Pyromorphite, chloro-phosphate of lead
Turquoise, a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium
References
External links
