Cinnabar, or cinnabarite, is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the brilliant red or scarlet pigment termed vermilion and associated red mercury pigments.
Coronene is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) comprising seven peri-fused benzene rings. Its chemical formula is C
24H
12. It is a yellow material that dissolves in common solvents including benzene, toluene, and dichloromethane. Its solutions emit blue light fluorescence under UV light. It has been used as a solvent probe, similar to pyrene.
A polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) is a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple aromatic rings. The simplest representative is naphthalene, having two aromatic rings, and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. PAHs are uncharged, non-polar and planar. Many are colorless. Many of them are found in coal and in oil deposits, and are also produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter—for example, in engines and incinerators or when biomass burns in forest fires.
Benitoite is a rare blue barium titanium cyclosilicate mineral, found in hydrothermally altered serpentinite. It forms in low temperature, high pressure environments typical of subduction zones at convergent plate boundaries. Benitoite fluoresces under short wave ultraviolet light, appearing bright blue to bluish white in color. The more rarely seen clear to white benitoite crystals fluoresce red under long-wave UV light.
Covellite is a rare copper sulfide mineral with the formula CuS. This indigo blue mineral is commonly a secondary mineral in limited abundance and although it is not an important ore of copper itself, it is well known to mineral collectors.
Metasomatism is the chemical alteration of a rock by hydrothermal and other fluids. It is the replacement of one rock by another of different mineralogical and chemical composition. The minerals which compose the rocks are dissolved and new mineral formations are deposited in their place. Dissolution and deposition occur simultaneously and the rock remains solid.
Idrialite is a rare hydrocarbon mineral with approximate chemical formula C22H14.
Lorándite is a thallium arsenic sulfosalt with the chemical formula: TlAsS2. Though rare, it is the most common thallium-bearing mineral. Lorandite occurs in low-temperature hydrothermal associations and in gold and mercury ore deposits. Associated minerals include stibnite, realgar, orpiment, cinnabar, vrbaite, greigite, marcasite, pyrite, tetrahedrite, antimonian sphalerite, arsenic and barite.
Evenkite is a rare hydrocarbon mineral with formula C24H50; specifically, H3C–(CH2)22–CH3, the alkane n-tetracosane. It occurs as very soft (Mohs hardness 1) transparent crystals, colorless to yellow, with a waxy luster. The softness is a characteristic of crystalline long-chain alkanes, which are the main constituents of paraffin wax.
Alacránite (As8S9) is an arsenic sulfide mineral first discovered in the Uzon caldera, Kamchatka, Russia. It was named for its occurrence in the Alacrán silver/arsenic/antimony mine. Pampa Larga, Chile. It is generally more rare than realgar and orpiment. Its origin is hydrothermal. It occurs as subhedral to euhedral tabular orange to pale gray crystals that are transparent to translucent. It has a yellow-orange streak with a hardness of 1.5. It crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system. It occurs with realgar and uzonite as flattened and prismatic grains up to 0.5 mm across.
Clearcreekite is a carbonate mineral, polymorphous with peterbaylissite. The chemical formula of clearcreekite is Hg1+3CO3(OH)∙2H2O. It has a pale greenish yellow color and streak with tabular subhedral crystals and good cleavage on {001}. It is transparent with vitreous luster and uneven fracture. Its density (calculated from the idealized formula) is 6.96 g/cm3. The mineral is monoclinic with the space group P2/c. Clearcreekite is an extremely rare mineral from the Clear Creek mercury mine, New Idria district, San Benito County, California. It was probably formed after the alteration of other mercury minerals such as cinnabar. The mineral is named after the locality where it was found.
Chamosite is the Fe2+end member of the chlorite group. A hydrous aluminium silicate of iron, which is produced in an environment of low to moderate grade of metamorphosed iron deposits, as gray or black crystals in oolitic iron ore. Like other chlorites, it is a product of the hydrothermal alteration of pyroxenes, amphiboles and biotite in igneous rock. The composition of chlorite is often related to that of the original igneous mineral so that more Fe-rich chlorites are commonly found as replacements of the Fe-rich ferromagnesian minerals (Deer et al., 1992).
George R. Rossman is an American mineralogist and the Professor of Mineralogy at the California Institute of Technology.
Getchellite is a rare sulfide of arsenic and antimony, AsSbS3, that was discovered by B. G. Weissberg of the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1963, and approved as a new species by the International Mineralogical Association in 1965. Many metal sulfides are grey to black, but a few are brightly colored. Orpiment is yellow to brownish gold, cinnabar is deep red and getchellite is a bright orange red.
Warikahnite is a rare zinc arsenate mineral of the triclinic crystal system with Hermann- Mauguin notation 1, belonging to the space group P1. It occurs in the Tsumeb mine in Namibia on corroded tennantite in the second oxidation zone under hydrothermal conditions in a dolomite-hosted polymetallic ore deposit. It is associated with adamite, stranskiite, koritnigite, claudetite, tsumcorite, and ludlockite. The origin of discovery was in a dolomite ore formation within an oxidized hydrothermal zone, in the E9 pillar, 31st level of the Tsumeb Mine in Namibia, Southwest Africa. It has also been found at Lavrion, Greece and Plaka, Greece as microscopic white needles.
Semseyite is a rarely occurring sulfosalt mineral and is part of the class of lead antimony sulfides. It crystallizes in the monoclinic system with the chemical composition Pb9Sb8S21. The mineral forms dark gray to black aggregates.
Paulscherrerite, UO2(OH)2, is a newly named mineral of the schoepite subgroup of hexavalent uranium hydrate/hydroxides. It is monoclinic, but no space group has been determined because no single-crystal study has been done. Paulscherrerite occurs as a canary yellow microcrystalline powdery product with a length of ~500 nm. It forms by the weathering and ultimate pseudomorphism of uranium-lead bearing minerals such as metaschoepite. The type locality for paulscherrerite is the Number 2 Workings, Radium Ridge near Mount Painter, North Flinders Ranges, South Australia, an area where radiogenic heat has driven hydrothermal activity for millions of years. It is named for Swiss physicist Paul Scherrer, co-inventor of the Debye-Scherrer X-ray powder diffraction camera. Study of paulscherrerite and related minerals is important for understanding the mobility of uranium around mining sites, as well as designing successful strategies for the storage of nuclear weapons and the containment of nuclear waste.
An organic mineral is an organic compound in mineral form. An organic compound is any compound containing carbon, aside from some simple ones discovered before 1828. There are three classes of organic mineral: hydrocarbons, salts of organic acids, and miscellaneous. Organic minerals are rare, and tend to have specialized settings such as fossilized cacti and bat guano. Mineralogists have used statistical models to predict that there are more undiscovered organic mineral species than known ones.
Wattersite is a rare mercury chromate mineral with the formula Hg+14Hg+2Cr+6O6. It occurs in association with native mercury and cinnabar in a hydrothermally altered serpentinite. It was first described from Clear Creek claim, San Benito County, California, USA in 1961. It was named to honor Californian mineral collector Lucius "Lu" Watters.
Edoylerite is a rare mercury containing mineral. Edoylerite was first discovered in 1961 by Edward H. Oyler, whom the mineral is named after, in a meter-sized boulder at the Clear Creek claim in San Benito County, California. The Clear Creek claim is located near the abandoned Clear Creek mercury mine. The material from the boulder underwent several analyses including, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), a single crystal study, and a preliminary electron microprobe analysis (EMA). Using these analyses it was determined that this was a new mineral but the nature of the material at the time prevented further investigation. It was not until 1986, with the discovery of crystals large enough for a crystal structure determination and a sufficient quantity for a full mineralogical characterization, that the study was renewed. The new edoylerite crystals were found in the same area at the Clear Creek claim but were situated in an outcrop of silica-carbonate rock. This silica-carbonate rock was mineralized by cinnabar following the hydrothermal alteration of the serpentinite in the rock. Edoylerite is a primary alteration product of cinnabar. Though found with cinnabar, the crystals of edoylerite do not typically exceed 0.5mm in length. The ideal chemical formula for edoylerite is Hg32+Cr6+O4S2
