Searlesite
Searlesite is a sodium borosilicate mineral, with the chemical formula NaBSi2O52. It was discovered in 1914 at Searles Lake, California, and was named to honor John W. Searles, California pioneer, who drilled the well that yielded the first known Searlesite.
Searlesite is usually found disseminated in fine-grained lacustrine strata and often associated with altering volcanic ash. It may be a minor component of borate deposits, but it is rarely found concentrated or in megascopic crystals and so has not been developed as an ore mineral of boron. It occurs interbedded with oil shales or marls and in boron-bearing evaporite deposits ; rarely in vugs in phonolite.
