pollucite
Sign in to savePollucite is a zeolite mineral with the formula with iron, calcium, rubidium and potassium as common substituting elements. It is important as a significant ore of caesium and sometimes rubidium. It forms a solid solution series with analcime. It crystallizes in the isometric-hexoctahedral crystal system as colorless, white, gray, or rarely pink and blue masses. Well-formed crystals are rare. It has a Mohs hardness of 6.5 and a specific gravity of 2.9, with a brittle fracture and no cleavage.
Key facts
- Mineral.name
- Pollucite
- Mineral.category
- Tectosilicate minerals
- Mineral.group
- Zeolite group
- Mineral.image
- Pollucite-193819.jpg
- Mineral.imagesize
- 260px
- Mineral.caption
- Euhedral, tabular crystal of colorless, translucent and lustrous pollucite with frosted crystal faces from Afghanistan (size: 2.7 x 2.4 x 1.2 cm)
- Mineral.IMAsymbol
- Pol
- Mineral.strunz
- 9.GB.05
- Mineral.dana
- 77.1.1.2
- Mineral.system
- Isometric
- Mineral.class
- Hexoctahedral (mm) H-M symbol: (4/m 2/m)
- Mineral.symmetry
- Iad
- Mineral.unit cell
- a = 13.67 Å; Z = 16
- Mineral.color
- Usually colorless; also white, grey, pink, blue or violet
- Mineral.habit
- Usually massive; rare crystals are normally trapezohedral or cubic
- Mineral.cleavage
- None observed
- Mineral.fracture
- Conchoidal to uneven
- Mineral.tenacity
- Brittle
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
2 sectionsContents
- Discovery and occurrence
- References
Pollucite is a zeolite mineral with the formula with iron, calcium, rubidium and potassium as common substituting elements. It is important as a significant ore of caesium and sometimes rubidium. It forms a solid solution series with analcime. It crystallizes in the isometric-hexoctahedral crystal system as colorless, white, gray, or rarely pink and blue masses. Well-formed crystals are rare. It has a Mohs hardness of 6.5 and a specific gravity of 2.9, with a brittle fracture and no cleavage.
==Discovery and occurrence== thumb|left|A pollucite ore sample held in the Royal Ontario Museum It was first described by August Breithaupt in 1846 for occurrences on the island of Elba, Italy. It is named for Pollux, the twin of Castor on the grounds that it is often found associated with petalite (previously known as castorite). The high caesium content was missed by the first analysis by Karl Friedrich Plattner in 1848, but after the discovery of caesium in 1860 a second analysis in 1864 was able to show the high caesium content of pollucite.