Vieille Montagne was a zinc mine in Kelmis, a town in Belgium between Liège and Aachen. The mine's name is French for "old mountain" or "old mine", and this is also reflected in its German name, Altenberg. The mine was once a bone of contention between Prussia on the one side and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands on the other, that resulted in a piece of land that became the territory of Neutral Moresnet.
Neutral Moresnet was a small Belgian–Prussian condominium in western Europe that existed from 1816 to 1921 and was administered jointly by the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Prussia. It was 1.5 kilometres (1 mi) wide and five kilometres (3 mi) long, with an area of 360 hectares. After 1830, the territory's northernmost border point at Vaalserberg connected it to a quadripoint shared additionally with the Dutch Province of Limburg, the Prussian Rhine Province, and the Belgian Liège Province. Its former location is represented presently by the Three-Country Point, the meeting place of the borders of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Kelmis is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège, named for the historical deposits of calamine nearby. As of 2011, the population was 10,881; the area is 18.1 square kilometres (7.0 sq mi) and the population density is 601.2 inhabitants per square kilometre (1,557/sq mi).
Zincite is the mineral form of zinc oxide (ZnO). Its crystal form is rare in nature; a notable exception to this is at the Franklin and Sterling Hill Mines in New Jersey, an area also famed for its many fluorescent minerals. It has a hexagonal crystal structure and a color that depends on the presence of impurities. The zincite found at the Franklin Furnace is red-colored, mostly due to iron and manganese dopants, and associated with willemite and franklinite.
Smithsonite, also known as zinc spar, is the mineral form of zinc carbonate (ZnCO3). Historically, smithsonite was identified with hemimorphite before it was realized that they were two different minerals. The two minerals are very similar in appearance and the term calamine has been used for both, leading to some confusion. The distinct mineral smithsonite was named in 1832 by François Sulpice Beudant in honor of English chemist and mineralogist James Smithson (c. 1765–1829), who first identified the mineral in 1802.
Antoine François Alfred Lacroix was a French mineralogist and geologist. He was born in Mâcon, Saône-et-Loire.
Franklinite is an oxide mineral belonging to the normal spinel subgroup's iron (Fe) series, with the formula Zn2+Fe23+O4.
Franklin Furnace, also known as the Franklin Mine, is a famous mineral location for rare zinc, iron, manganese minerals in old mines in Franklin, Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. This locale produced more species of minerals and more different fluorescent minerals than any other location. The mineral association (assemblage) from Franklin includes willemite, zincite and franklinite.
Todorokite is a complex hydrous manganese oxide mineral with generic chemical formula (Na,Ca,K,Ba,Sr)
1-x(Mn,Mg,Al)
6O
12·3-4H
2O. It was named in 1934 for the type locality, the Todoroki mine, Hokkaido, Japan. It belongs to the prismatic class 2/m of the monoclinic crystal system, but the angle β between the a and c axes is close to 90°, making it seem orthorhombic. It is a brown to black mineral which occurs in massive or tuberose forms. It is quite soft with a Mohs hardness of 1.5, and a specific gravity of 3.49 – 3.82. It is a component of deep ocean basin manganese nodules.
Fraipontite is a zinc aluminium silicate mineral with a formula of (Zn,Al)3(Si,Al)2O5(OH)4.
Jean-Jacques Daniël Dony was an inventor and industrialist. He invented a procedure for the production of pure zinc, and opened a mine in Moresnet.
Fluorapatite, often with the alternate spelling of fluoroapatite, is a phosphate mineral with the formula Ca5(PO4)3F (calcium fluorophosphate). Fluorapatite is a hard crystalline solid. Although samples can have various color (green, brown, blue, yellow, violet, or colorless), the pure mineral is colorless, as expected for a material lacking transition metals. Along with hydroxylapatite, it can be a component of tooth enamel, but for industrial use both minerals are mined in the form of phosphate rock, whose usual mineral composition is primarily fluorapatite but often with significant amounts of the other.
Jerrygibbsite is a rare silicate mineral with the chemical formula (Mn,Zn)9(SiO4)4(OH)2. Jerrygibbsite was originally discovered by Pete J. Dunn in 1984, who named it after mineralogist Gerald V. Gibbs. It has only been reported from the type locality of Franklin Furnace, New Jersey, United States, and in Namibia's Otjozondjupa region. Jerrygibbsite is member of the leucophoenite family of the humite group. It is always found with these two minerals. It is a dimorph of sonolite.
Bustamite is a calcium manganese inosilicate (chain silicate) and a member of the wollastonite group. Magnesium, zinc and iron are common impurities substituting for manganese. Bustamite is the high-temperature polymorph of CaMnSi2O6 and johannsenite is the low temperature polymorph. The inversion takes place at 830 °C (1,530 °F), but may be very slow.
Bustamite could be confused with light-colored rhodonite or pyroxmangite, but both these minerals are biaxial (+) whereas bustamite is biaxial (−).
Tsumcorite is a rare hydrated lead arsenate mineral that was discovered in 1971, and reported by Geier, Kautz and Muller. It was named after the TSUMeb CORporation mine at Tsumeb, in Namibia, in recognition of the Corporation's support for mineralogical investigations of the orebody at its Mineral Research Laboratory.
Sonolite is a mineral with formula Mn9(SiO4)4(OH,F)2. The mineral was discovered in 1960 in the Sono mine in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. In 1963, it was identified as a new mineral and named after the Sono mine.
Serve-Dieu Abailard "Armand" Lévy was a French mathematician and mineralogist. He is remembered in the Haüy-Lévy notation for describing mineral crystal structures.
Neu-Moresnet is a village and sub-municipality of Kelmis in the German-speaking community of the province of Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. The village was founded as Prussian-Moresnet as part of the Lower Rhine Province. In 1919, after World War I, it was awarded to Belgium, and renamed Neu-Moresnet. In 1940, it was annexed by Nazi Germany, and in 1944, it was returned to Belgium. Neu-Moresnet was an independent municipality until 1977 when it was merged into Kelmis.
Moresnet is a village and sub-municipality of Plombières in the province of Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. It was originally a German speaking village. Nowadays French is the official language.
Gilles Joseph Gustave Dewalque was a Belgian physician, geologist, paleontologist, and mineralogist.
