petzite
Sign in to saveThe mineral petzite, Ag3AuTe2, is a soft, steel-gray telluride mineral generally deposited by hydrothermal activity. It forms isometric crystals, and is usually associated with rare tellurium and gold minerals, often with silver, mercury, and copper.
Key facts
- Mineral.name
- Petzite
- Mineral.category
- telluride mineral
- Mineral.image
- Petzite.jpg
- Mineral.caption
- Petzite with quartz – Sacarîmb, Nagyág, Romania
- Mineral.formula
- Ag3AuTe2
- Mineral.IMAsymbol
- Ptz
- Mineral.strunz
- 2.BA.40a
- Mineral.system
- Cubic
- Mineral.class
- Gyroidal (432) (same H-M symbol)
- Mineral.symmetry
- I4132
- Mineral.color
- Steel-gray to iron-black, commonly tarnished from bronze-yellow to sooty black; grayish white with a pale bluish tint in polished section
- Mineral.habit
- Granular to massive
- Mineral.fracture
- Subconchoidal irregular
- Mineral.tenacity
- Slightly sectile to brittle.
- Mineral.mohs
- 2.5 – 3
- Mineral.luster
- Metallic
- Mineral.streak
- Grayish black
- Mineral.diaphaneity
- Opaque
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The mineral petzite, Ag3AuTe2, is a soft, steel-gray telluride mineral generally deposited by hydrothermal activity. It forms isometric crystals, and is usually associated with rare tellurium and gold minerals, often with silver, mercury, and copper.
The name comes from chemist W. Petz, who first analyzed the mineral from the type locality in Săcărâmb, Transylvania, Romania in 1845. It was described by Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger in 1845 and dedicated to W. Petz who had carried out the first analyses.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “petzite” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.