Meyerhofferite
Meyerhofferite is an interesting borate, chiefly known from Death Valley in California.
It is known from deposits in Argentina, Kazakhstan, and Turkey as well, but most
specimens in collections are Californian.
Meyerhofferite was originally found as pseudomorphs after Inyoite, blocky crystals and
aggregates, composed of silky white fibers of Meyerhofferite replacing the Inyoite
crystals. The type locality is Mt. Blanco (Death Valley, Inyo Co., California, USA) and
the type material is indeed fibrous Meyerhofferite, replacing blocky Inyoite crystals.
Subsequently, Meyerhofferite was also found at Mt. Blanco as minute acicular crystals,
but these are far more rare than the pseudomorphs.
Meyerhofferite is not used industrially and was named for Wilhelm Meyerhoffer (1864-
1906), a German chemist, who originally made a synthetic analogue of the mineral.
Specimen Handling
Meyerhofferite specimens are very brittle, should be handled with great care, and
preferably touched and moved as little as possible. It is formed in very warm and dry
areas, and we doubt it is susceptible to high temperatures. We do not know it to be
susceptible to humidity, but note that crystals may be susceptible to detach if immersed
in water. That is, even if not strictly water soluble, water may harm specimens.
Bibliography
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ed.
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Bulletin. 191
Palache, Charles. 1938. Crystallography of Meyerhofferite. American
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mineralogy of James Dwight Dana and Edward Salisbury Dana, Yale University
1837-1892, 7th ed. Vol. 2.
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This page is authored by Claus Hedegaard.
