Tunellite

specimen number:
2354082

location:
Kramer Deposit, Boron, Kern Co., California, USA

description:
Excellent for the species, a loose glassy slightly translucent colorless grouping of double terminated crystals without matrix. Essentially this is one large crystal with numerous smaller ones coming off in in all directions. In great condition.

The Kramer Deposit, located at Boron in Kern County, California, USA, is a world-famous lacustrine evaporite deposit that formed during the Miocene Epoch within an ancient lake basin. Volcanic and thermal spring activity enriched the saline waters with elevated levels of boron, leading to the deposition of massive bedded sodium and calcium borate minerals beneath thick clay layers. Discovered in the 1920s, the locality evolved into one of the largest open-pit borax mining operations in the world, operated by U.S. Borax. The deposit is famous among mineral collectors as the type locality for tunellite, a rare strontium borate mineral discovered there in 1961, which forms sharp, colorless to white tabular crystals in the lacustrine sedimentary layers.

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