Titanowodginite, Quartz, Beryl

This specimen features a sharp, jet-black twinned titanowodginite crystal embedded in pure white cesium-rich beryl and glassy quartz, collected from the Beryl Pit — the type locality for titanowodginite. Though the crystal’s tip is contacted by a bit of quartz, it remains a striking example of this rare mineral from its type locality at the Tanco Mine, also known as the Bernic Lake Mine, located on the northwest shore of Bernic Lake, Manitoba, Canada. Owned and operated by Sinomine Resource Group since 2019, Tanco hosts the world’s largest known deposit of pollucite, making it the largest global producer of cesium. Discovered in 1930, the mine initially produced minor amounts of tin and beryl before operating intermittently between 1954 and 1982, first for lithium, beryl, and decorative quartz, and later for tantalum and cesium. For decades, the Tanco pegmatites have been a critical global source of cesium, tantalum, and lithium.