Petersite(-(Y) (very rare) (ex Matioli)

Item Description

Petersite-(Y) is a rare-earth phosphate only found in few places in the world, but the best known examples are those from a now defunct diabase quarry in New Jersey, the famous Laurel Hill (Snake Hill) Quarry. This locality is well known to east coast collectors, and dates back to the late 1800s with regard to mineral specimens. This locality an igneous rock intrusion jutting up from the floor of the Meadowlands in southern Secaucus, New Jersey, USA, at a bend in the Hackensack River. It is the type locality to only one species, Petersite-(Y) which was first discovered at Snake Hill in June 1981 by Nick Facciolla (the author of The Minerals of Laurel Hill - Secaucus New Jersey), who took it to the Paterson Museum for identification. The mineral was named in 1982 after Tom Peters and Joe Peters (1951-), who were mineral curators at the Paterson museum in New Jersey and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, respectively. This piece comes to us from the collection of Paolo Matioli and featurs TINY radial sprays of greenish Petersite-(Y) sitting on / Chrysocolla on matrix. The Petersites are small, but noteworthy, as it's now impossible to find any more examples of this material. If you collect rarities, US minerals, or specimens from the type locality, you cannot miss out on this one.