Yingjiangite is a mineral named after its type locality in the Yingjiang county in 1990. It is a member of the phosphuranylite group, although the species was doubted by two geologists. It is easily confused with phosphuranylite, though the two geologists (

José Moacyr Vianna Coutinho José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacul ...

and Daniel Atencio) claim that the mineral might be identical to it, even though yingjiangite was approved in 1989-1990 by the IMA.

Properties

This mineral has

pleochroic Pleochroism (from Greek πλέων, ''pléōn'', "more" and χρῶμα, ''khrôma'', "color") is an optical phenomenon in which a substance has different colors when observed at different angles, especially with polarized light. Backgroun ...

attributes, which is an optical phenomenon that makes the mineral seem to be a different color depending on the axis it is inspected on. On the x axis, the mineral seems to be almost colorless, on the y it is pale yellow, and on the z it can be seen as a yellow mineral. It is also

fluorescent Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...

, meaning that it emits light when exposed to a certain type of light (in most cases ultraviolet), or either when it absorbs

electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic field, electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, inf ...

. The fluorescent attribute of is due to the mineral being uranium based. Both under short and long UV light, it emits a weak yellow green light. Yingjiangite grows in acicular crystals up to a millimeter. It forms aggregates, made of clusters or several individual crystals. It has a fine-grained coating and yellow crusts. A common finding place for the mineral is in uranium deposits, especially in oxidized zones, as it is a uranium and oxygen-based mineral. It is a secondary product in these mines, which in most of the cases contain

uraninite Uraninite, formerly pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the uranium causes t ...

and uranothorite. Yingjiangite mostly consists of uranium (63.90%) and oxygen (25.77%), but otherwise includes phosphorus (4.75%), potassium (4.50%), hydrogen (0.70%) and calcium (0.38%). Due to the high uranium concentration of the mineral, it has a very strong, 4,679,034.10 radioactivity measured in

Gamma Ray American Petroleum Institute Units Gamma (uppercase , lowercase ; ''gámma'') is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter re ...

. The concentration per GRapi unit of the mineral is 213.72.

References

{{reflist Phosphate minerals Uranium minerals Orthorhombic minerals