McGovernite with Willemite, Franklinite, Calcite

specimen number:
2063426

location:
Franklin, Sussex Co., New Jersey, USA

description:
Rich reddish-brown grains of mcgovernite to 0.4 cm in size throughout this matrix of massive calcite, franklinite, and willemite. The specimen comes with a previous label from the collection of Ray DeMark.

Franklin, New Jersey, situated in the Sussex County Highlands, is world-famous for its unique Precambrian stratiform metamorphic ore body hosted within the Franklin Marble. Active mining began in the mid-1800s and continued for over a century, producing vast quantities of zinc ore while establishing the area as the fluorescent mineral capital of the world. Among the more than 300 mineral species discovered in the region, mcgovernite is one of the rarest and most complex hydrous manganese zinc arsenosilicates found anywhere on Earth. First described from the Sterling Hill mine in nearby Ogdensburg during the 1920s, mcgovernite occurs as bronzy-brown to reddish thin micaceous flakes.

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