Home > California Borate Minerals – July 22 > MS0954 Inderite

Inderite - Sold


Inderite is a magnesium borate named after its original occurrence at Lake Inder, Kazakhstan (Godlevsky, 1937). Although found at Boron since the 1950s, the identity with the Kazakh material went unrecognized for a decade or so. American scientists named this mineral lesserite and later established its identity with inderite when X-ray diffraction data become available for type inderite (Frondel & Morgan, 1956; International Mineralogical Association, 1962). This is a fine specimen, consisting of a bright thick single crystal. The mineral is very brittle, and this specimen shows micro-chipping on the edges of the terminations. In fact, most crystal terminations simply break off during handling. This writer has examined hundreds of crystal sections to find only a single terminated example. The inderite from this locality is simply the best known, and this example is a choice piece.