Mount Xuebaoding, Hujia, Pingwu County, Aba Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China
Mt. Xuebaoding is one of our Top 12 Localities.
The Locality
Loftily poised well above 4000 meters elevation and in the largest nature preserve for the giant panda, the tin-tungsten deposits of the Xuebaoding massif have produced superb mineral treasures befitting the grandeur of the area.
Specimens from here may also be labeled ‘Pingwu’ or ‘Songpan,’ both of which are the names of nearby towns and their respective counties. Xueboading mountain is part of both counties, but the workings are apparently on the Pingwu County side. Access to the site is also through Pingwu. Hujia (or Huya) is a smaller town in Pingwu County, but closer to the site. ‘Shuijingchang’ is a name given to the locality itself and means ‘crystal site.’ The best locality designation for labeling is probably ‘Mount Xuebaoding, Huija, Pingwu County, Aba Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China.’
The deposit consists of many quartz-mica and quartz-feldspar-mica veins associated with granitic intrusions. The ‘mines’ are worked by about 100 miners living in a small camp near the site. Of these about one third devote their time to collecting specimens for the collector market.
The Minerals
The Xuebaoding deposit is primarily noted for world class scheelite, cassiterite, and beryl specimens. Lustrous, translucent to gemmy orange scheelite occurs as pseudo-octahedral crystals up to 8 cm on an edge. These rank among the finest in the world, as do the best of the cassiterite specimens produced here, which are generally highly lustrous, black crystals; many exhibit twinning. Beryl occurs as thick, tabular goshenite, pale aquamarine, and morganite crystals exhibiting dominant pinacoid and hexagonal dipyramid faces, and small prism faces. All three minerals are not only commonly associated with one another, most are found aesthetically perched on densely packed pale-gray mica matrix.
Between 2001 and 2003, miners found specimens of kësterite coated in greenish mushistonite, both very rare copper-tin minerals. Before their true identity was determined, these were labeled ‘pandaite’. For kësterite, these represent the largest and finest crystals known.
Other species that occur as fine specimens include albite, apatite, dolomite, euclase, fluorite, orthoclase, quartz, and topaz.
Further Reading
Ottens, Berthold. 2005. Xuebaoding, Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, China. Mineralogical Record 36: 45-57.
Ottens, Berthold. 2004. Xuebaoding – die weltbesten Scheelite zwischen Pandas und ewigem Eis. extraLapis 26/27: 68-87.
