Jeanbandyite

In a study of sulphide minerals, mainly from between 29 and 34 levels (i.e., second oxidation zone) Geier and Otteman (1970a) reported a number of potentially new minerals, one of which was a sulphide of copper and tin, to which they assigned a working name of "Mineral Lu". Subsequent study (Geier and Otteman 1970b) showed the presence of an oxide mineral occupying fractures in Mineral Lu, for which microprobe analysis gave a composition corresponding to an ideal formula of FeSn(OH)₆, but with a little manganese and germanium (partly replacing iron and tin respectively). Unfortunately, they had insufficient material for XRD analysis, but assigned a working name of "Mineral D" to what appeared to be a tin analogue of stottite.

Jeanbandyite (IMA 1980-043), the tin analogue of stottite, was described from a Bolivian type locality some ten years later (Kampf 1982). Kampf noted that naturally occurring FeSn(OH)₆ had already been reported from Tsumeb by Geier and Otteman (1970b) but that neither the symmetry nor the oxidation state of the iron had been determined.