Whelanite
specimen number:
2354173
location:
Bawana Mine, Beaver Co., Utah, USA
description: Located northwest of Milford in the Rocky Range of Beaver County, Utah, the Bawana Mine is an open-pit copper operation developed during the early 1960s to extract copper-bearing contact metamorphic deposits. The local geology features a complex contact zone where Tertiary quartz monzonite intrusions encountered Paleozoic limestone, forming a well-developed copper-bearing skarn system rich in silicate and carbonate alteration zones. Mineralization in these hydrothermally altered contacts yielded rare secondary hydrated copper calcium silicates, making the pit the type locality for the mineral whelanite. Named in honor of mineralogist James A. Whelan, whelanite occurs as delicate, dark blue to bluish-green platy crystals, radial aggregates, and crusts associated with other rare silicate minerals like stringhamite and kinoite. Although commercial copper mining ceased after the primary ore bodies were depleted in the late 1960s, the mine dumps and pit wall exposures remain historically famous among micro-mineral collectors for producing exceptional specimens of rare copper skarn species.
Rich blue masses of whelanite throughout matrix. Good example for the species.
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