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Thallium is a chemical element; it has symbol Tl and atomic number 81. It is a gray post-transition metal that is not found free in nature. When isolated, thallium resembles tin, but discolors when exposed to air. Chemists William Crookes and Claude-Auguste Lamy discovered thallium independently in 1861, in residues of sulfuric acid production. Both used the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy, in which thallium produces a notable green spectral line. Thallium, from Greek θαλλός, thallós, meaning "green shoot" or "twig", was named by Crookes. It was isolated by both Lamy and Crookes in 1862; Lamy by electrolysis, and Crookes by precipitation and melting of the resultant powder. Crookes exhibited it as a powder precipitated by zinc at the international exhibition, which opened on 1 May that year.
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis and chemical analysis, particularly in the investigation of metals, glass, ceramics and building materials, and for research in geochemistry, forensic science, archaeology and art objects such as paintings.
Alforsite is a barium phosphate chloride mineral with formula: Ba5(PO4)3Cl. It was discovered in 1981, and named to honor geologist John T. Alfors (1930–2005) of the California Geological Survey for his work in the area where it was discovered.
Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver.
An electron microprobe (EMP), also known as an electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA) or electron micro probe analyzer (EMPA), is an analytical tool used to non-destructively determine the chemical composition of small volumes of solid materials. It works similarly to a scanning electron microscope: the sample is bombarded with an electron beam, emitting x-rays at wavelengths characteristic to the elements being analyzed. This enables the abundances of elements present within small sample volumes to be determined, when a conventional accelerating voltage of 15-20 kV is used. The concentrations of elements from lithium to plutonium may be measured at levels as low as 100 parts per million (ppm), material dependent, although with care, levels below 10 ppm are possible. The ability to quantify lithium by EPMA became a reality in 2008.
Sulfosalt minerals are sulfide minerals with the general formula AmBnXp, where
Boulangerite is an uncommon monoclinic orthorhombic sulfosalt mineral, lead antimony sulfide, formula Pb5Sb4S11. It was named in 1837 in honor of French mining engineer Charles Boulanger (1810–1849), and had been a valid species since pre-IMA. It was first described prior to 1959, and is now grandfathered.
Freieslebenite is a sulfosalt mineral composed of antimony, lead, and silver. Sulfosalt minerals are complex sulfide minerals with the formula: AmBnSp. The formula of freieslebenite is AgPbSbS3.
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.
Thallium(I) iodide is a chemical compound with the formula TlI. It is unusual in being one of the few water-insoluble metal iodides, along with AgI, CuI, SnI2, SnI4, PbI2 and HgI2.
The thallium halides include monohalides, where thallium has oxidation state +1, trihalides in which thallium generally has oxidation state +3, and some intermediate halides containing thallium with mixed +1 and +3 oxidation states. These salts find use in specialized optical settings, such as focusing elements in research spectrophotometers. Compared to the more common zinc selenide-based optics, materials such as thallium bromoiodide enable transmission at longer wavelengths. In the infrared, this allows for measurements as low as 350 cm−1 (28 μm), whereas zinc selenide is opaque by 21.5 μm, and ZnSe optics are generally only usable to 650 cm−1 (15 μm).
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.
Coyoteite is a hydrated sodium iron sulfide mineral. The mineral was named coyoteite after Coyote Peak near Orick, California, where it was discovered.
Allchar deposit is a low-temperature hydrothermal gold–arsenic–antimony–thallium deposit in Kavadarci Municipality of North Macedonia. For some time, the thallium-rich part of the deposit was mined. The Crven Dol mine yielded thallium and the ore body still holds estimated amount of 500 t of thallium. The mineral lorandite from this ore deposit can be used to determine the solar neutrino flux.
Ardaite is a very rare sulfosalt mineral with chemical formula Pb19Sb13S35Cl7 in the monoclinic crystal system, named after the Arda River, which passes through the type locality. It was discovered in 1978 and approved by the International Mineralogical Association in 1980. It was the second well-defined natural chlorosulfosalt, after dadsonite.
Scotlandite is a sulfite mineral first discovered in a mine at Leadhills in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, an area known to mineralogists and geologists for its wide range of different mineral species found in the veins that lie deep in the mine shafts. This specific mineral is found in the Susanna vein of Leadhills, where the crystals are formed as chisel-shaped or bladed. Scotlandite was actually the first naturally occurring sulfite, which has the ideal chemical formula of PbSO3. The mineral has been approved by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, IMA, to be named scotlandite for Scotland.
Mammothite is a mineral found in the Mammoth mine in Tiger, Arizona and also in Laurium, Attika, Greece. This mineral was named in 1985 by Donald R. Peacor, Pete J. Dunn, G. Schnorrer-Köhler, and Richard A. Bideaux, for the Mammoth vein (one of the two main veins in the mine) and the town of Mammoth, Arizona, which was named for the mine. The mammothite that is found in Arizona exist as euhedral crystals imbedded in micro granular, white colored anglesite with a saccharoidal texture. The associated minerals include phosgenite, wulfenite, leadhillite and caledonite. In Greece, the mammothite exists as small euhedral crystals and also as microscopic rock cavities lined with projecting crystals within the slags. The associated minerals here are cerussite, phosgenite and matlockite. The ideal chemical formula for mammothite is Pb6Cu4AlSb5+O2(OH)16Cl4(SO4)2.
Danielsite is a sulfide and sulfosalt that was first discovered in a pocket of supergene minerals in the north region of Western Australia. The location found was about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) west of the locality known as Coppin Pool. The mineral danielsite was named after John L. Daniels who collected the sample in which the new mineral was found. The chemical formula of danielsite is (Cu,Ag)
14HgS
8. Danielsite is very fine grained and hard to observe in hand samples. It generally has a gray color with very brittle and soft physical characteristics.
Segnitite is a lead iron(III) arsenate mineral. Segnitite was first found in the Broken Hill ore deposit in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. In 1991, segnitite was approved as a new mineral. Segnitite has since been found worldwide near similar locality types where rocks are rich in zinc and lead especially. it was named for Australian mineralogist, gemologist and petrologist Edgar Ralph Segnit. The mineral was named after E. R. Segnit due to his contributions to Australian mineralogy.
Glance or glances, sometimes also galenoids — obsolete or partially obsolete collective name for the morphological group of minerals, compiled according to external characteristics. The group included more than three dozen names, mainly from the group of sulfides and related compounds. As a rule, different examples of glosses have a gray mirror or metallic luster with refractive indices above 3, and sometimes a metallike appearance.
References
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- 1 2 3 Rayite. Webmineral
- 1 2 3 Rayite. Mindat.org
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- 1 2 Wuensch, B. J. (1980): Superstructures In Sulfide Minerals. In: Cowler, J. М., Cohen, J. B., Salamon, M. B. & Wuensch, B. J., Eds., Modulated Struc- Tures 1979. Amer. Init. Phys. Conference Proc., 58, 337-354.