Copper minerals

Iyoite is a very rare manganese copper chloride hydroxide mineral with the formula MnCuCl(OH)3. Iyoite is a new member of the atacamite group, and it an analogue of botallackite characterized in manganese and copper ordering. Iyoite is monoclinic (space group P21/m). It is chemically similar to misakiite. Both minerals come from the Ohku mine in the Ehime prefecture, Japan.

Skaergaardite is an intermetallic platinum group mineral with the general chemical formula PdCu. The mineral is named after its discovery location: the Skaergaard intrusion, Kangerdlugssuaq area, East Greenland. The mineral name was approved by the International Mineralogical Association in 2003. The mineral has also been reported in the Duluth intrusion in Minnesota and the Rum layered intrusion in Scotland.

Belloite is a halide mineral first discovered in the Rio Tinto Mine in Sierra Gorda, Antofagasta, Chile in 1998. Belloite has the ideal chemical formula of Cu(OH)Cl. The mineral has been approved by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, IMA, to be named belloite, after Andrés de Jesús María y José Bello López, the founder of the Universidad de Chile. Samples of belloite are preserved in the collection of the Mineralogical Museum in Hamburg, Germany.

Cupalite is a rare mineral which is mostly composed of copper and aluminium, but might contain up to several percent of zinc or iron; its chemical structure is therefore described by an approximate formula or . It was discovered in 1985 in placers derived from serpentine, in association with another rare mineral khatyrkite (CuAl2). Both minerals are thus far restricted to the area of the Iomrautvaam, in the Khatyrka ultramafic (silicon-poor) zone of the Koryak–Kamchatka fold area, Koryak Mountains, Anadyrsky District, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia. The mineral