Paravauxite (historic specimen)

Item Description

Here we a great old historic specimen of the rare hydrated iron aluminum phosphate Paravauxite from the type locality in Bolivia. The species was named in 1922 by Sam Gordon of the Philadelphia Academy after George Vaux, Jr., an esteemed mineral collector from Pennsylvania, and the nephew of well-known mineral collector William S. Vaux. Sam Gordon was able to visit Bolivia thanks the Vaux's contributions to explorations in the 1920s-1930s to Bolivia, Peru and Chile for the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. This specimen comes directly from the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences Collection (#19807) and hosts a few lustrous, light green blades of Paravauxite measuring to 4 mm sitting atop grey-green colored Wavellite (the classic association for the first specimens of Paravauxite). From the collection of Brian Kosnar.