Home > Phosphate Minerals – July 11 > MS1400 Vauquelinite with Crocoite

Vauquelinite with Crocoite - Sold


Vauquelinite is a hydrated lead phosphate chromate, named in honor of Professor Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (1763-1829), a chemist at the University of Paris (Berzelius, 1818). Its type locality in Russia has challenged mineralogists since the 1700s. When a brilliant red mineral was discovered (crocoite), samples were sent to France from which Professor Vauquelin first isolated chromium. The history of the discovery of chromate minerals, and the element chromium, was reviewed by Sid Williams in his 1974 paper The Naturally Occurring Chromates of Lead.

This specimen was part of the Charles M. Noll (1922–2014) collection. It comes with four labels: (1) Noll, (2) David Crawford, (3) University of Pennsylvania, and one in (4) old script.