Descloizite localitites in the central portion of the colorado mineral belt

摘要

Descloizite, PbZnVO_4(OH), is a basic vanadate of lead and zinc and forms a series with mottramite, PbCuVO_4(OH). The mineral was named for Alfred Louis Olivier Legrand Des Cloizeaux (1817-97), a professor of mineralogy at the University of Paris, Paris, France. In the United States descloizite is a fairly rare secondary mineral that occurs sparingly in some oxidized lead-zinc or copper deposits in the Southwest. Notable localities are in Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Colorado descloizite occurred in two distinct and quite different types of mineral deposits. In the Uravan mineral belt, located in southwestern Colorado near the Utah border, descloizite occurred in sandstone-hosted uranium-vanadium deposits. It formed microscopic crystals interstitial to quartz grains and occurred as distinct bands along the outer boundaries of several of the uranium-vanadium deposits. Associated minerals were vanadinite, clausthalite, ferroselite, and brackebuschite (Eckel 1997).