upcScavenger » Manganese Minerals » Wiki: Alabandite

Alabandite

( Manganese Minerals )

Etymology and history
Occurrence
Crystal structure
See also
References

C O N T E N T S

Alabandite Cubic Manganese Minerals

Rank: 100%

Wiki
Comments
Media

Alabandite or alabandine, formerly known as manganese blende or bluemenbachite is a rarely occurring manganese sulfide mineral. It crystallizes in the cubic crystal system with the chemical composition manganese²⁺sulfur and develops commonly massive to granular aggregates, but rarely also cubic or octahedral crystals to 1 cm.

Etymology and history

Alabandite was first described in 1784 by Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein. The mineral name is derived from its supposed discovery locality at Alabanda (Aïdin) in Turkey.

Occurrence

Alabandite forms in epithermal polymetallic sulfide veins and low-temperature manganese deposits. It occurs with acanthite, calcite, chalcopyrite, galena, pyrite, quartz, rhodochrosite, rhodonite, sphalerite and native tellurium. Sometimes it was found in .

Localities are several areas in Antarctica, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Greenland, India, Italy, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, the US, Uzbekistan and Yemen. All together at present time approximately 220 discovery sites are registered.

Crystal structure

Alabandite crystallizes in the cubic crystal system in the space group Fm3m with the Lattice constant a = 5.22 Å American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database - Alabandite (1991) and four per unit cell.