Graftonite with Triphylite

specimen number:
2354147

location:
Rice Mine, North Groton, New Hampshire, USA

description:
Rich brown masses of graftonite with bluish triphylite. The specimen comes with two previous labels as shown at the end of the video, including one from the collection of Eric Laskowski.

Situated in Grafton County, New Hampshire, the Rice Mine in North Groton is a classic granite pegmatite body hosted within Paleozoic schist and gneiss bedrock. Mined primarily for mica and beryl during the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, the pegmatite features heavily zoned quartz, feldspar, and muscovite core units enriched with diverse phosphate mineralization. The mine served as the co-type locality for graftonite, a rare iron manganese calcium phosphate mineral that exhibits a distinct salmon-pink to reddish-brown coloration and forms prominent lamellar intergrowths with triphylite. Over the decades, mineral collectors and amateur field enthusiasts heavily frequented the site dumps to recover sharp graftonite specimens alongside associated secondary phosphate minerals, securing the small quarry an enduring reputation in regional mineral history.

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