Aeschynite Mineral

Good day dear community, I hope you are all well and you had a day that brought some interesting experiences into your life! In this post, I would like to introduce you to a mineral a little more closely and hope you are able to expand your knowledge.

Here you can see a specimen of Aeschynite which also contain rare earths and there are various variations such as Aeschynite-(ND), Aeschynite-(Y) and Aeschynite-(CE). The rarity varies depending on the variant and because of the contained rare earths like yttrium, cerium or neodymium it could be interesting for extraction, but from an economic point of view there are no significant areas of application because of the rarity and it is particularly popular in research or the circles of collectors. It is important to mention that it is slightly radioactive due to the chemical composition and collectors must urgently pay attention to this and store it in sealed containers and when handling aeschynite, you must also pay attention to the right protective measures. The first discoveries can already be traced back over 200 years and quickly some mineralogists devoted themselves to research and it was considered very difficult to identify at the time why the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779 - 1848) decided to name it after the Greek word aeschyne, which means so much as shame because the exact examination has often caused headaches. Berzelius has made a huge name for himself in chemistry and his accumulated experiences are revolutionary and he is also often referred to as the father of modern chemistry and his most groundbreaking research is probably the analysis of elements or atoms and he ensured that some uniform terms were defined in chemistry. In the coming years, the research became better and better and other mineralogists and chemists also decided to examine Aeschynite more closely and it was much easier to research the chemical structures and it came to the fact that the other variations were described and more interest was also shown in the contained rare earths. The appearance can be very different and in addition to the typical dark specimens there are also some with white or yellow colors and you can find it in mines in pegmatites.

Thanks a lot 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.