blossite

Blossite is an anhydrous copper vanadate mineral with the formula: . Blossite was named for mineralogist F. Donald Bloss of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

==Natural and synthetic occurrence== Blossite was first described for an occurrence in the “Y” fumarole in the summit crater of Izalco Volcano, El Salvador. There it occurs with several high-temperature minerals including: stoiberite, fingerite, ziesite, and mcbirneyite. The natural analogues of these compounds crystallize in the CuO-V2O5 binary system first studied by Brisi and Molinari (1958) and were first discovered as synthetic compounds. Blossite is the low temperature polymorph of ziesite, β-Cu2V2O7. All of the blossite crystals identified to date are inter-grown with other fumarolic copper vanadates. The discovered location of these copper vanadates, in the outer sulfate zone of the fumarole, indicates a sublimation temperature between 100 °C and 200 °C.