Ashoverite is one of three polymorphs of

zinc hydroxide Zinc hydroxide Zn( OH)2 is an inorganic chemical compound. It also occurs naturally as 3 rare minerals: wülfingite (orthorhombic), ashoverite and sweetite (both tetragonal). Like the hydroxides of other metals, such as lead, aluminium, beryll ...

, Zn(OH)₂. It is a rare mineral first found in a limestone quarry near

Ashover Ashover is a village and civil parish in the English county of Derbyshire. It is in the North East Derbyshire district of the county. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 Census was 1,905. It sits in a valley, not far from the tow ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

, England, in 1988. It has also been found in the Harz mountain range in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. The mineral was discovered after samples of the polymorph

sweetite Sweetite has a general formula of Zn(OH)2. The name is given after a curator of mineral department of The British Museum, Jessie May Sweet (1901–1979). It occurs in an oxidized vein in limestone bedrock with galena, ashoverite, wülfingite, ang ...

were sent to labs by S. A. Rust. Some specimens contained what appeared to be

baryte Baryte, barite or barytes ( or ) is a mineral consisting of barium sulfate ( Ba S O4). Baryte is generally white or colorless, and is the main source of the element barium. The ''baryte group'' consists of baryte, celestine (strontium sulfate), ...

but, which on further examination, were found to be a previously undescribed mineral.

References

Handbook of MineralogyAshoverite Mineral Data
webmineral.com

Zinc minerals Hydroxide minerals Tetragonal minerals Minerals in space group 141 Polymorphism (materials science) Minerals described in 1988 {{materials-sci-stub