Tuesday, April 24, 2012

U is for Ulexite

Ulexite from Boron, California


Ulexite is one of the mineral oddities.  It is really nature’s version of fiber optics because it is composed of many parallel crystals that act like fibers.  Pieces over a foot tall can be polished at both ends and you can still read a newspaper through it.  It is affectionately referred to as “TV stone” because of this phenomenon.

It forms in evaporate deposits like the borate evaporate deposits ofCalifornia.

It was named for its discover Georg Ludwig Ulex (1811-1883) who was a German chemist. Ulexite is a primary ore of boron.

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