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Material World
Mineral · Pb5(VO4)3Cl

Vanadinite

A lead vanadate that forms brilliant red hexagonal crystals in weathered lead deposits — and one of the few minerals vanadium concentrates in.

Ore Collectible specimen

Vanadinite forms where a lead deposit has weathered and vanadium, dispersed through the surrounding rock, has been concentrated into the oxidised zone. The crystals are hexagonal prisms of an intense orange-red, and they are among the most collected mineral specimens for that reason alone.

As an ore it is secondary rather than principal. Most vanadium is recovered as a by-product of iron and uranium processing or from spent catalysts, and vanadinite matters more as one of the few places the element forms a mineral of its own than as a source of it.

How to identify it

Bright red to orange hexagonal crystals, often hollow or barrel-shaped, sitting on a dark matrix. Very heavy for the size, at around seven times the density of water, and soft enough to scratch with a coin.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is an ore of

  • Vanadium — element · a minor ore — most vanadium is a by-product of iron and uranium processing Wikidata
  • Lead — element · and locally a lead ore, being a secondary mineral of weathered lead deposits Wikidata

is a component of

  • Oxidised zone — deposit type · orange hexagonal crystals in the lead-bearing oxidised zones of dry climates, where the zone develops deeply and is not washed away

contains

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
  • Crystallography Open Database
    COD Advisory Board / Vilnius University · CC0 — contributors place data in the public domain

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Vanadinite back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Downstream — what it becomes

  • Vanadinite → is an ore of (and locally a lead ore, being a secondary mineral of weathered lead deposits) → Lead → is a source for (most silver reaches the market as a by-product of lead mining rather than from silver mines, recovered from the refinery's residues) → Silver → is a component of (a few per cent in the lead-free alloys, which measurably raised world silver demand when the transition happened) → Solder → is used in (and the move away from tin-lead under RoHS from 2006 is the most visible material change the industry has made) → Electronics manufacture → is associated with (and the supply chain it produced is the deepest and most concentrated in the world economy) → The semiconductor era complete chain
  • Vanadinite → is an ore of (a minor ore — most vanadium is a by-product of iron and uranium processing) → Vanadium → is used as (in high-speed and tool steels) → Alloying
  • Vanadinite → is a component of (orange hexagonal crystals in the lead-bearing oxidised zones of dry climates, where the zone develops deeply and is not washed away) → Oxidised zone
  • Vanadinite → is an ore of (and locally a lead ore, being a secondary mineral of weathered lead deposits) → Lead → is associated with (lead was smelted alongside copper from the earliest metallurgy) → Bronze Age complete chain
  • Vanadinite → is an ore of (and locally a lead ore, being a secondary mineral of weathered lead deposits) → Lead → is a source for (and from lead smelting, by the same route) → Thallium → is used as (thallium-201 as a cardiac imaging tracer) → Medical imaging
  • Vanadinite → is an ore of (a minor ore — most vanadium is a by-product of iron and uranium processing) → Vanadium → is used as (vanadium pentoxide is the catalyst of the contact process) → Catalysis

These are the most distinct paths onward. Vanadinite ends up in others besides.