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Formula: Ca(H2O)3Fe3+2(V2O7)2
Vanadate
Crystal System: Triclinic
Specific gravity: 2.97 measured
Hardness: 3
Streak: Yellow
Colour: Yellow
Luminescence: Non-fluorescent
Environments
Donowensite is a new mineral, approved in 2020 and to date (June 2023) reported only from the type locality.
Localities
At the type locality, the North Wilson pit, Union Carbide Mine, Wilson Springs, Garland county, Arkansas, USA,
donowensite occurs as orange needles, up to about 1 mm in length, with wedge-shaped terminations.
The deposit occurs in altered sedimentary rocks adjacent to their contact with a
syenite intrusion. The orebodies in general are the result of
concentration of
vanadium from original pyroxene
and
biotite within the
feldspathoidal host.
Many of the macroscopic mineral species are secondary (such
as straczekite,
montroseite and
hewettite) and were formed during or after the alteration of
vanadium-bearing pyroxene to
vanadium-rich
clay-sized material.
Donowensite occurs with mikehowardite, and both phases grow on
a crust
of red-orange radial fibrous bokite, and on a matrix composed of a mixture of
bokite and an indistinct
smectite-group
mineral
(CM 60.543-554).
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