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Xenotime
YPO₄ · phosphate
Xenotime is a trace mineral at Orión — quantified only in the bulk channel samples, at a few hundredths of a per cent, and reported as negligible in the drill holes.
Yields
→ neodymium · praseodymium · dysprosium · terbium
Data status
Trace — bulk sample only
Class
phosphate
Why it matters
As general mineralogy, not an Osmond figure, xenotime is a phosphate of yttrium and the heavy rare earths, including dysprosium and terbium — a different rare-earth suite from the light-rare-earth minerals, which is why it is identified separately in an assemblage rather than folded into a single rare-earth line.
What Osmond has reported at Orión is small and bounded. On a mass-balance basis dated 19 February 2026, xenotime was quantified only in the bulk channel samples, at 0.03–0.04%; in the drill holes it is reported as negligible. Those are figures for the channel samples, set against total heavy minerals of 29.4–32.8% in the same samples, with up to roughly 40% estimated in the AV-01bis interval.
The state of the record is the point here rather than the grade. Xenotime has no concentrate grade and no recovery figure, its bulk-sample percentage is a mass-balance estimate calculated from oxide assays rather than a directly measured mineral content, and the drill holes — the wider of the two sample sets — record it as negligible.
Quantified in the bulk channel samples only, at trace level and on a mass-balance basis; reported as negligible in the drill holes, with no concentrate figure and no deposit-wide grade.
Used for
- 01Heavy rare earths — yttrium, dysprosium and terbium.
- 02Magnet heat resistance — dysprosium and terbium keep magnets working at motor temperatures.
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