Extremely rare mineral found in Bavaria

Together, the pieces found so far would roughly form a snowball that would fit in one hand. “And we have now found a second snowball,” explained the head of the geological service of the State Environment Agency, Roland Eichhorn, in Hof.

“The cyborg among minerals”
The Humboldtin is named after the natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt. “It’s the cyborg of minerals,” Eichhorn said. Like all life on earth, it consists of carbon and water, but at the same time it also contains iron.

According to him, it was not known for a long time that this rarity was in the rock collection in Upper Franconia. Employees are currently digitizing the collection archive. They came across a 75-year-old letter that tells about the mineral.

However, it was not mentioned in the catalogue. That’s why the team searched the entire collection of 130,000 exhibits. Finally she discovered the yellow pieces and label in a small box.

No option to search by location
Analyzes in the laboratory showed that it was actually Humboldtin. According to Eichhorn, this comes from a lignite mining area near Schwandorf in the Upper Palatinate – and will likely continue to amaze researchers.

Lignite mining was stopped and the area was filled with water in the 1980s. “There is no longer any way to investigate the site for clues as to how the Humboldtin came to be,” Eichhorn said.

But mineral enthusiasts will have the chance to admire it: it will be on display at the Geological Survey stand at Europe’s largest mineral fair, the Munich Show, in October 2024.