Øvstebø, Kleppan, Sauland, Hjartdal, Telemark, Norwayi

Regional Level Types
Øvstebø	Deposit
Kleppan	Farm
Sauland	Hamlet
Hjartdal	Municipality
Telemark	County
Norway	Country

A cyprine-thulite deposit near Kleppan. The minerals occur in quartz lenses and veins in quartz porphyry and amphibolite. The zoisite variety thulite was first described from this locality.

Note on the locality name: Øvstebø means “the uppermost farm”: Øvste – uppermost, bø – farm.

A note on cyprine from Øvstebø (Sauland):
The name “Cyprin” was introduced in 1820 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius for a blue, Cu-bearing variety of vesuvianite from Kleppan, Sauland, Norway. Since then, it's common among museums, collectors, and dealers to label bluish or bluish-green vesuvianites from Øvstebø as cyprine. The same name was used for a new mineral approved in 2015. The present-day “cyprine” is defined as having a Cu-dominant site in its crystal structure (Panikorovskii et al., 2017).

Does cyprine — according to its new definition — occur at Øvstebø?
Yes, one sample of blue “cyprine (of Berzelius)” from Sauland was analyzed by Ohkawa et al. (1992). The analysis shows a content of 1.01% CuO with 0.37 atoms (moles per 50 cations). Thus, Cu > Mg in the Y1 site (See also comment in Aksenov et al. (2016)). This can be considered a “true” cyprine (of Panikorovskii et al. 2017).

But not all bluish “cyprines” are the new mineral. The colour is not enough to identify the mineral as the new mineral “cyprine”. Earlier analysis shows that the content of Cu varies. Panikorovskii et al. (2016, 2017) show that some “cyprines” from Øvstebø are vesuvianites with a disordered P4/nnc symmetry, and are poor in Fe (<0.5% pfu). They should probably be considered as either magnesiovesuvianite or cyprine, depending upon the dominant cation in the Y1 site.

Non-analysed “bluish / bluish-green vesuvianite” from Øvstebø should thus be labelled as vesuvianite group.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References