Encyclopedia of Japanese Minerals (Go to Intro Page)
by Alfredo Petrov
Minerals Starting with "V"
VAESITE (besu-koh)
Akita: In kuroko-type massive pyrite in the Uchinotai deposit at the Kosaka mine.
VALENTINITE (barenchin-seki)
Gifu: Nishi-Shirakawa.
Hiroshima: Divergent fans of tan-colored long prismatic crystals to 3mm embedded in oxide-zone rock at the Showa mine.
Kagoshima: Associated with kermesite in decomposing berthierite ore at the Hinomoto mine.
VALLERIITE (barerii-koh)
Gifu: Bright metallic, nodular masses to 5mm at Kurotani.
Iwate: In pyrometasomatic pyrrhotite ore at the Akagane (Ide-Akagane) mine.
Miyazaki: Graphic intergrowths with chalcopyrite, exsolved from bornite, at the Matsuo mine. Similarly as exsolution lamellae in the Tomitaka pyrite mine.
Okayama: Fuka.
VANADINITE (katsu-en-koh; banajin-en-koh)
Aichi: Inuyama city (but NOT from the Tsugao volborthite locality, and the whole reference to Inuyama vanadinite may be spurious).
Fukuoka: Miyoshino mine.
Yamaguchi: Hidaka mine.
VARISCITE (barishia-seki)
(Mostly "Variscite-L" - "Lucin-type variscite"??)
Fukushima: Takatama mine.
Hokkaido: Kohnomai mine.
Kouchi: With wavellite (qv), planerite and cacoxenite in chert at Toyoda.
Shizuoka: Kawazu mine.
"VARISCITE-M" (redonda-seki)
Tochigi: "Redondite" (Messbach-type variscite) is found at Inokura in Imaichi-shi.
VARLAMOFFITE (kasui-suzu-ishi)
Kyoto: Yellowish brown to straw-colored earthy amorphous masses embedded in white quartz from Gyoujayama. Formed by oxidation of stannite, relict masses of which may remain in the varlamoffite. (May somewhat resemble the tungstite here, which is associated with scheelite rather than stannite.)
VASHEGYITE (bashegii-seki)
Kyoto: White powdery crusts in fissures at Hozukyo.
Okinawa: Multi-cm white to pale brownish white vuggy masses in the Kitadaitojima mine.
VATERITE (fahteru-seki)
Hokkaido: Shiowakka. (Presumably from same environment as the ikaite here?)
VAUQUELINITE (vohkuran-seki)
Hyougo: At the Akenobe mine (Dr. Takashi Yamada lecture to the Mineralogical Society).
VERMICULITE (kudo-hiru-ishi; baamikyuraito; hydrobiotite = sui-kuro-unmo)
(including "hydrobiotite" = 1:1 interstratified vermiculite-"biotite", a separate species)
Fukui: "Hydrobiotite" is found at Matsugatani as yellowish brown, roughly hexagonal short prisms to 1cm across, formed by weathering of biotite in granite.
Fukuoka: Silvery light brown to greenish vermiculite, resembling sericite, composes most of a massive dravite-bearing rock in Maibaru city. (Kanji for exact locality signifies "no water".)
Fukushima: "Hydrobiotite" was mined at Onoshinmachi (Ono-machi) for production of "expanded vermiculite". Largest production of such material in Japan. Residual deposit derived by weathering of biotite in granitic rock. "Hydrobiotite" also in the nearby towns Ohgoshi, and Motomiya-machi. Also at Kotaka, at Mujinamori, at Satoshiraishi, and at Uzumine. (probably some duplication of locs?)
Kouchi: Produced by intense weathering of chlorite in the Sanbagawa greenschist belt. With wavellite, planerite, quartz and Fe hydroxides at Toyoda, in chert altered by acid water from decomposing pyrite.
Nagasaki: A regularly interstratified chlorite-vermiculite is formed by weathering of coarse-grained "penninite" chlorite flakes in a talc and chlorite vein in serpentinite at Torika. Also in Nanatsugama.
Tottori: "Hydrophlogopite" at the Wakamatsu mine.
Yamanashi: At Hajikano, brown to yellowish brown grains to 5mm across of "hydrobiotite" formed by weathering of biotite in granite.
VESUVIANITE (besubu-ishi; besubu-seki)
Fukushima: At Hanawa-machi, prismatic dark green-brown xls to 6cm are coated with a thin, light tan crust. At Fujikaramari, at Tokura, and at Yazuka. (One of these probably corresponds to the Hanawa-machi reference.)
Iwate: Vesuvianite is the major component of a skarn at the Kamaishi mine, where it also contains hydrogarnets, perovskite, kamaishilite, calcite, magnetite and minor chalcopyrite. Also here in the Shinyama Cu-Fe orebody, forming high-temperature skarn along with tilleyite, titaniferous andradite, calcite and several sulfides (including tochilinite). Pale green massive vesuvianite occurs with dark grey tilleyite (qv) and black bicchulite (qv) in marble at the Sakae orebody of the Akagane mine.
Kanagawa: Brown, short prismatic to equant vesuvianite crystals, 1cm size, showing mainly (100) and (111) faces, with various combinations of smaller (101), (110), (001), (210), (211), (221), (311), (312), (331) and (511), occur in contact metasomatosed limestone at Houkizawa, in Yamakita-machi, with rare plombierite. Also in contact metasomatosed limestone as sharp 1cm xls with (101), (111), (100), (001) and (110) faces at Kurokura.
Kyoto: Crystals displaying only first and second order prism faces, in metamorphosed limestone at Gobessho near Kyoto city.
Nagano: Beautiful brown-black to transparent brown crystals to 6mm, with many faces, at the Kobushi mine. Some crystals are greenish due to acicular inclusions of epidote.
Okayama: At Fuka, massive vesuvianite is common, together with hydrogrossular and bicchulite, as an alteration of gehlenite in gehlenite-spurrite skarn. Vesuvianite-garnet skarn band in limestone quarry at Niimi city. Also at the Mihara mine.
Ouita: At the Kiura mine, as well-developed green-black prismatic xls to 4.5cm long and 1.5cm thick, displaying (001), (111), (100) and (110) faces, along with other minor faces, lining cavities in deep brown, massive vesuvianite in contact metasomatosed limestone near a granitic intrusion. In garnet-clinopyroxene-vesuvianite-scapolite-tremolite skarn at Natsukidani in this same district. With hastingsite in skarn at the Obira mine.
Saitama: At the Chichibu mine, light brown to greenish brown or bright light green, short prismatic to equant blocky xls to almost 4cm (average about 1cm), displaying mainly (101) and (111) faces, smaller (100) and (110), sometimes very small (001), associated with yellow grossular in metasomatosed Permian limestone near contact with granodiorite intrusion. Also with diopside, clintonite and hydroxylellestadite.
Yamaguchi: With calcite in skarn at the Kiwada scheelite mine.
VESZELYITE (bezeri-seki; arakawa-seki)
Akita: At the Hisaichi mine (a section of the Arakawa mine) as the mineral originally described as "ARAKAWAITE". Veszelyite here forms dark blue, dark bluish green to deep green (RI 1.63-1.74), simple stout prismatic to flattened prismatic crystals to 1.8cm, but more usually 1cm, dominated by m(110) and the wedge-like terminal e(011) faces, with several minor faces, as crystal groups or crusts in oxidized Pb-Zn-bearing copper ore, commonly associated with hemimorphite, malachite, cuprite, cerussite, linarite, chrysocolla, copper and limonite, in veins cutting Miocene shale and tuff. The veszelyite lightens to dull pale bluish green on weathered surfaces, and is often replaced by pseudomorphs of green pseudomalachite or blue-green hidalgoite. "Arakawaite" has a Cu:Zn ratio = 2:1 and no arsenate, making it the worldÕs purest veszelyite, and it was material from this locality, rather than the type locality, that was used for solving the structure of veszelyite. (Luster vitreous to greasy; streak and thin section color pale bluish green; no pleochroism; H 3.5; D 3.09.) Veszelyite also occurs under very smilar conditions at the Sugisawa mine.
Gifu: Material originally described in 1952 from cavities and fissures in decomposed skarn of the Urushiyama orebody in the Kamioka mine as "KAMIOKALITE", is an unusually Zn-rich veszelyite with 30.52 wt.% CuO, 32.44 % ZnO, and no Pb or arsenate, the most zinc-rich veszelyite known in the world. (Even though there is slightly more Zn than Cu, it does not qualify for separate species status because the Zn is distributed over two structural sites and the main cation site is still Cu-dominant.) Prussian blue, highly lustrous sharp crystals reach 2mm, but are usually less than 1mm. Equal development of e(011) and m(110) faces give it an octahedral habit, but prismatic crystals including i(111) faces are also common. Also as thin films on skarn. Associated with malachite, hemimorphite, native silver. (RI 1.630 - 1.683; weak blue to pale blue pleochroism; pale blue streak; no cleavage; conchoidal fracture; H 3-3.5.)
Shiga: Bright blue crystals and crusts as a secondary mineral in Cu-bearing skarn exposed in a quarry on Haiyama hill.
VILLYAELLENITE (biriyaeren-seki)
Fukushima: Colorless needles in radial aggregates to 2mm diameter, partly altered to red-brown geigerite crystals, in fissures in metamorphosed sedimentary manganese ore at the Gozaisho mine.
VIVIANITE (ran-tekkoh)
Aichi: Excellent euhedral crystals to 24cm(!) in interstices of angular lacustrine chert breccia fragments outcropping in a quarry at Iruka. Some breccia clasts are coated with a thin crust of vivianite microcrystals (Matsubara, S. (1965) Vivianite from Iruka, Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture. Chigaku Kenkyu 16, 364-367 (in japanese)).
Akita: "Blue earth" at Shibigawa.
Gifu: As blue films on botryoidal olive-brown siderite on Gotomaki hill.
Hyougo: Round vivianite concretions to 3cm diameter, normally coated with a thick crust of limonite, are abundant in Pliocene-Pleistocene clay, where they were collected as far back as the 1960s. In the mid 1990s, many were collected when temporarily exposed in a roadcut during construction of the Seishin-Chuhou highway at Oshibedani in Kobe city. Many have central cavities containing microcrystals of several other phosphate species. The vivianite is often wholly or partly oxidized to beraunite, metavivianite ("kertschenite"), etc., although some are fresh and unaltered. Similarly at Katada in Kobe city.
Ibaragi: As aggregates forming crusts replacing triphyllite associated with rockbridgeite and scorzalite in a pegmatite intruding pelitic schist of the Tsukuba metamorphic complex in a quarry at Yukiiri. Dark blue cleavages to 2cm in fissures at Nagasawa.
Kumamoto: Classic specimens of "blue earth" replace plant leaves in Pleistocene lakebed clay at Kimbohsan (Kimpuusan; Kinpouzan). Much anatomical detail often remains visible.
Mie: At Komono, very fresh vivianite aggregates of botryoidal to irregular shape occur in upper Pliocene to lower Pleistocene Age-group blue clay bed. Aggregates are composed of small spheroids with tiny clay-filled cavities in their centers. (Unlike the nodules from Kobe city, these contain no secondary phosphates.) The vivianite is slightly manganoan (0.49 to 2.95 wt% MnO, = 0.03-0.20 apfu) and also encloses microinclusions of rhodochrosite. (Up to 0.53% MgO, = 0.0 to 0.06 apfu.) Nodules also in freshwater lakebed sediments at Tarusaka. "Blue earth" at Haruta.
Miyazaki: Crystals to 2mm form druses in pyritic ore, and in joints of sandstone country rock, at the Tomitaka mine. Earthy massive vivianite at Shimauchi.
Nara: Nodules to 5cm, composed of aggregates of individual vivianite crystals to 3mm wide, in freshwater lake sediments at Tomigaoka in Nara city.
Ouita: Radial aggregates of prismatic crystals form nodules to almost 7cm diameter in Pleistocene mudstone on Himeshima and offshore. Individual crystals measure up to 1mm x 0.3mm, with microcrystal terminations protruding from the surface of fresh nodules. Most of these concretions are spheroidal, but some are very elongated pseudostalactitic, and some ellipsoidal ones have protrusions on the central axis giving them a shape like spinning tops. Blue on the inside, but often with ochre-yellow oxide crust on the outside. (Some apparent "vivianite" crystals from the Kiura mine turned out to be its arsenate analogue, the new mineral parasymplesite, which might also be the case for a "blue fibrous mass of vivianite" reported with scorodite from here (Wada 1904).)
Shiga: Very dark blue concretions to 4cm, almost pure vivianite, composed of radiating lenticular crystals to 6 mm, were found abundantly in illitic clay in Hino-cho. Smaller concretions may be single spheroidal nodules, larger ones are often misshapen single nodules or compound botryoidal. Manganoan vivianite micronodules with up to 22.7 wt% MnO are currently being deposited in bottom muds in freshwater Lake Biwa (Nakano, S. (1992) Manganoan vivianite in the bottom sediments of Lake Biwa, Japan. Mineralogical Journal 16, 96-107). Vivianite replaces shells and teeth in Pleistocene lakebed clay in the Ohgi-Katada area near the southwest shore of the current lake.
Tochigi: At the Ashio mine, vivianite formed light blue to green, excellent octagonal prismatic crystals to 15cm(!) long, 4cm wide, with sharp lustrous (100), (010), (110) and (111) faces, in groups growing into fractures and cavities of chalcopyrite veins or in Kajika hydrothermal replacement massive chalcopyrite ore. Also in a platy habit paralleling the (010) face, to 2cm across. And as rhombic prisms with large (110) faces, terminated by (601), (111) and (111), associated with beautiful ludlamite crystals in clay-filled fractures of the surrounding country rock. Quite pure, with a trace of Mg replacing Fe. Become dark blue on exposure, and crystals in old collections are now generally blue-black. In Japan, these are now very valuable and usually unobtainable specimens.
(Also known in Japan as a fumarolic deposit.) Where??? Error????
VOLBORTHITE (banajin-dohkoh)
Aichi: At Tsugao in Inuyama city, as yellow-green micro-aggregates forming crusts to 1mm.
Gifu: Unuma (continuation of same strata as across the river at Tsugao in Aichi-ken).
VOLTAITE (boruta-seki)
Hokkaido: Lustrous light to dark olive greenish voltaite as 1mm sharp equant crystals occurs embedded in violet crystalline coquimbite masses and yellow copiapite in oxidized hydrothermal gold-silver veins at the Kohnomai mine.
Kagoshima: Dark olive green to purplish, isometric voltaite crystals to 1mm occur with orange metavoltine in white fibrous sulfate masses around a fumarole on Akuseki island in the Tokara chain.
VOLYNSKITE (borinsukii-koh)
Fukuoka: At the Yokozuru mine, volynskite occurs with melonite, hessite and petzite as a late-stage vein deposit in a scheelite-bearing quartz skarn.
VONSENITE (fonsen-seki)
Iwate: Radiating black vonsenite needles and prisms to 4cm long form massive aggregates associated with actinolite and calcite in garnet-magnetite skarn of the Shinyama orebody at the Kamaishi iron mine. Referred to in old references as "paigeite" and "ferroludwigite". (Watanabe and Ito (1954) Mineralogical Journal, 1, 84-88)
VUAGNATITE (vania-seki; bania-seki)
Mie: The second world occurrence for vuagnatite was at Shiraki in Toba city, where it occurs as colorless, white to pale bluish white, greenish white, pale pink, or light yellowish brown crystals, a few tenths mm size, or massive granular, associated with xonotlite and hydrogrossular in pectolite veinlets in serpentinite and peridotite; and as light blue grains in wollastonite.
VULCANITE (burukan-koh)
Hokkaido: Reported from the Teine mine.
Kagoshima: Relatively rich specimens, pure masses to 1.5cm or more, reported from the Iriki mine, but the original material has disappeared and so can't be reanalyzed and it has been suggested that it was really goldfieldite.
VUORELAINENITE (bohrerainen-seki)
Ehime: At the Kurase mine, in metamorphosed bedded manganese ore.
Saitama: Found with cobaltpentlandite and cobaltoan fianelite in metasedimentary Mn ore at the Komatsu mine.
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