Catalog Search Guide
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Wulfenite
Wulfenite is a lead molybdate mineral with the chemical formula PbMoO4, prized above almost any other species for its saturated color and razor-sharp geometry. It crystallizes in the tetragonal system, which gives it a characteristic tabular or square crystal habit, with thin, plate-like crystals that often have sharp, square edges, occasionally forming pyramidal, bipyramidal, or pseudo-cubic crystals instead. Colors run from orange-yellow, yellow, honey-yellow, and reddish-orange to rarely colourless, grey, brown, olive-green and even black, with an adamantine to resinous luster. It is a soft, dense species — Mohs hardness of 2.5-3, and specific gravity between 6.5 and 7.0 — that forms as a secondary mineral in the oxidized zones of lead deposits. The species is named after the Austrian Jesuit Franz Xaver von Wulfen, and Bad Bleiberg, a village near Villach in Carinthia, Austria, is the type locality, where Wulfen first studied and described the lead ores in his 1785 monograph. American wulfenite specimens are dominated by Arizona: the Red Cloud Mine in the Silver District of La Paz County is world-famous for strikingly bright, reddish-orange crystals, while the nearby Rowley Mine, Old Yuma Mine, and Mammoth-Saint Anthony Mine have all produced classic cabinet pieces. Mexico contributes some of the finest material worldwide: Villa Ahumada, Sierra De Los Lamentos, Chihuahua yields thick, blocky crystals, the San Francisco Mine near Cucurpe, Sonora produces thin transparent yellow crystals, and the Ojuela Mine, Mapimi, Durango is known for elongated rectangles and tapering prisms, often associated with green Mimetite. In Morocco, Mibladen and Touissit are prolific producers of sharp orange crystals often associated with vanadinite and cerussite, while Tsumeb in Namibia is a classic locality that produced crystals of wulfenite with lighter color than other occurrences. Other notable sources include the Kuruktag Mountains of Xinjiang, China, M'fouati in the Congo, and Mount Peca in Slovenia.
Collectors chase wulfenite for the same reasons Wulfen's contemporaries did: few minerals combine such geometric perfection with such vivid, gem-like translucency. The Red Cloud Mine alone yielded over 21,000 tons of ore and thousands of specimens of accessory wulfenite, one of which was even honored on a 1992 US postage stamp. Chemically, wulfenite sits within a solid-solution series toward stolzite (lead tungstate), with tungsten-rich intermediates known as chillagite, and it is closely related to scheelite and powellite among molybdate minerals. Because each locality tends to produce a distinctive habit and hue — from the blood-red plates of Arizona to the pale honey tones of Tsumeb — seasoned collectors can often identify origin at a glance, making provenance and locality data central to any serious wulfenite collection.
