Aikinite is a

sulfide mineral The sulfide minerals are a class of minerals containing sulfide (S2−) or disulfide () as the major anion. Some sulfide minerals are economically important as metal ores. The sulfide class also includes the selenide mineral, selenides, the tell ...

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

and

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element; it has symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs nat ...

with formula Pb Cu Bi S₃. It forms black to grey or reddish brown acicular

orthorhombic In crystallography, the orthorhombic crystal system is one of the 7 crystal systems. Orthorhombic Lattice (group), lattices result from stretching a cubic crystal system, cubic lattice along two of its orthogonal pairs by two different factors, res ...

crystals with a

Mohs hardness The Mohs scale ( ) of mineral hardness is a qualitative ordinal scale, from 1 to 10, characterizing scratch resistance of mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fair ...

of 2 to 2.5 and a

specific gravity Relative density, also called specific gravity, is a dimensionless quantity defined as the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity for solids and liquids is nea ...

of 6.1 to 6.8. It was originally found in 1843 in the Beryozovskoye deposit,

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

. It is named after Arthur Aikin (1773–1854), an English

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

. It has been found in Western Tasmania, in mines located near

Dundas, Tasmania Dundas was a historical mining locality, mineral field and railway location on the western foothills of the West Coast Range in Western Tasmania. It is now part of the locality of Zeehan. Location The town was located 5 kilometres east o ...

References

Lead minerals Copper(I) minerals Bismuth minerals Sulfosalt minerals Orthorhombic minerals Minerals in space group 62 Glances {{sulfide-mineral-stub