bornite

Also known as erubescite, peacock copper

Bornite, also known as peacock ore, is a sulfide mineral with chemical composition that crystallizes in the orthorhombic system (pseudo-cubic). It is an important copper ore.

Key facts

Mineral.name: Bornite
Mineral.category: Sulfide mineral
Mineral.image: Bornite-Quartz-135210.jpg
Mineral.imagesize: 260px
Mineral.caption: Lightly iridescent bornite crystal on quartz needles, from Kazakhstan
Mineral.formula: Cu5FeS4
Mineral.IMAsymbol: Bn
Mineral.molweight: 501.88 g/mol
Mineral.strunz: 2.BA.10
Mineral.system: Orthorhombic
Mineral.class: Dipyramidal (mmm) H-M symbol: (2/m 2/m 2/m)
Mineral.symmetry: Pbca
Mineral.unit cell: a = 10.95 Å, b = 21.862 Å, c = 10.95 Å; Z = 16
Mineral.color: Copper red, bronze brown, purple
Mineral.habit: Granular, massive, disseminated – Crystals pseudocubic, dodecahedral, octahedral
Mineral.twinning: Penetration twins on [111]
Mineral.cleavage: Poor on [111]
Mineral.fracture: Uneven to subconchoidal

via Wikipedia infobox

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Encyclopedic overview

10 sections

Contents

Appearance
Mineralogy
Structure
Composition
Form and twinning
Occurrence
History and etymology
See also
References
Bibliography

Bornite, also known as peacock ore, is a sulfide mineral with chemical composition that crystallizes in the orthorhombic system (pseudo-cubic). It is an important copper ore.

==Appearance== thumb|left|Tarnish of bornite Bornite has a brown to copper-red color on fresh surfaces that tarnishes to various iridescent shades of blue to purple in places. Its striking iridescence gives it the nickname peacock copper or peacock ore.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “bornite” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.