A mountain complex in southern Greenland that is one of the strangest mineral places on Earth: Ilímaussaq is the type locality for more than two dozen minerals found almost nowhere else, and it is the home of tugtupite, the “reindeer blood” stone, which glows an intense red under ultraviolet and even deepens in sunlight. Nearby Kvanefjeld holds one of the largest rare-earth and uranium deposits in the world, the subject of a fierce mining fight. Remote, protected, Arctic ground; the specimens are museum treasures. Near Narsaq.
Tugtupite, sodalite, rare species
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