THE MINERAL JORDANITE


Jordanite forms sharp, nicely formed crystals sometimes with deep striations. The contrasting dark gray to black, high lustered mineral sitting on a backdrop of massive white dolomitic marble makes for a very nice mineral display specimen. Jordanite is a rare sulfide mineral found mostly at the famous quarry of Lengenbach, Binnental, Valais, Switzerland. Most of the more exotic minerals from this site are arsenic sulfosalts, like jordanite, and other sulfides. Some of the rare minerals from here include: novakite, seligmannite, rathite, sartorite, smythite, wallisite, lengenbachite, bernardite, baumhauerite, arsenolamprite, liveingite, dufrenoysite, marrite, imhofite and hatchite to name a few. Jordanite is a mineral formed from hydrothermal solutions that intermixed with the local country rock's chemistry to produce some exotic mineral species. Jordanite is isomorphous with the mineral geocronite, Pb14(Sb, As)6S23 which means that they both have the same structure, just different chemistries. In this case jordanite is the arsenic rich mineral and geocronite is the antimony rich mineral.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:

 

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