Skip to content
EntityQ421643· pop 10· linked from 17 articles

Violarite (Fe2+Ni23+S4) is a supergene sulfide mineral associated with the weathering and oxidation of primary pentlandite nickel sulfide ore minerals.

Key facts

Mineral.name
Violarite
Mineral.image
Violarite (49055219618-cropped).jpg
Mineral.category
Sulfide mineral Thiospinel group Spinel structural group
Mineral.formula
(Fe2+Ni23+S4)
Mineral.IMAsymbol
Vio
Mineral.strunz
2.DA.05
Mineral.system
Isometric
Mineral.class
Hexoctahedral (mm) H-M symbol: (4/m 2/m)
Mineral.symmetry
Fdm
Mineral.unit cell
a = 9.46 Å; Z = 8

via Wikipedia infobox

~4 min read

Encyclopedic overview

4 sections
Contents
  • Paragenesis
  • Occurrence
  • Economic importance
  • References

Violarite (Fe2+Ni23+S4) is a supergene sulfide mineral associated with the weathering and oxidation of primary pentlandite nickel sulfide ore minerals.

Violarite crystallises in the isometric system, with a hardness of 4.5 to 5.5 and a specific gravity of about 4, is dark violet grey to copper-red, often with verdigris and patina from associated copper and arsenic sulfides, and is typically in amorphous to massive infill of lower saprolite ultramafic lithologies.

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