Spodumene

Well-crystallized spodumene specimens from the Tanco Mine at Bernic Lake, Manitoba, are quite rare on the market. This piece is a section of a tabular, grayish-green spodumene crystal with a broken termination. Despite the damage at the tip, it remains a representative example of this uncommon mineral from the locality.

Also known as the Bernic Lake Mine, Tanco has been owned and operated by Sinomine Resource Group since 2019. It hosts the world’s largest known deposit of pollucite and is the leading global producer of cesium. The deposit was discovered in 1930 and initially yielded small amounts of tin and beryl. Between 1954 and 1982, the mine operated intermittently for lithium, beryl, and decorative quartz, later shifting focus to tantalum and cesium. For decades, the Tanco pegmatite has been a critical source of cesium, tantalum, and lithium on the world stage.