Nioboheftetjernite

nioboheftetjernite

rossovskyite

thortveitite

euxenite-(Y)

Images

Formula: ScNbO4
Oxide, wolframite group, scandium- and niobium- bearing mineral
Crystal System: Monoclinic
Specific gravity: 5.855 calculated
Hardness: 5½
Streak: Dark brown to black
Colour: Black
Environments

Pegmatites

Nioboheftetjernite is a relativel new mineral, found on a single specimen labelled as thortveitite in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada, and approved in 2020. To date (March 2022) it has been found only from the type locality.

Localities

At the type locality, the Befanamo pegmatite, Beronono, Anjozorobe, Analamanga, Madagascar, nioboheftetjernite occurs as anhedral grains and very crude elongated crystals up to 200 μm in length in an intergrowth with rossovskyite, ilmenite, rutile, thortveitite, euxenite-(Y), feldspar and quartz.
The pegmatite, which was intruded as a sill into a biotite gneiss, is a granitic pegmatite of the NYF (niobium, yttrium, fluorine) type, and for many years it was the only known ore body for thortveitite in Madagascar (CM 59.2.445-452).

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