Woodhouseite Locality: Champion Mine (White Mountain Mine), White Mountain , Laws , White Mts, Mono County , California , USA ( Locality at mindat.org ) Field of view 5 mm. Specimen and photo Leon Hupperichs. — Photo: Leon Hupperichs · CC BY-SA 3.0
Woodhouseite
A calcium-aluminium phosphate-sulfate of the beudantite group — tiny colorless crystals from California's Champion mine.
Intro adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Woodhouseite is an IMA-recognized mineral species in the phosphate class, with the chemical formula CaAl₃(SO₄)(PO₄)(OH)₆.
It crystallizes in the trigonal crystal system (space group R-3m). It is a member of the Alunite-beudantite structural group.
Key properties: Mohs hardness 4.5; specific gravity 3.01; Vitreous, pearly on {0001} luster; optically uniaxial.
IMA symbol Wdh, IMA status: approved, named in 1937.
Found in quartz veins in an andalusite deposit (Champion mine, California, USA); a product of sulphatic argillic wall-rock alteration in hydrothermal vein and disseminated ore deposits, replacing apatite (Summitville, Colorado, USA).
It is found associated with Topaz, augelite, lazulite, pyrophyllite (Champion mine, California, USA).
The mineral was named to honor Professor Charles Douglas Woodhouse (1888–1975), University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA, American mineralogist and mineral collector.