Ferberite is the iron

endmember An endmember (also end-member or end member) in mineralogy is a mineral that is at the extreme end of a mineral series in terms of purity of its chemical composition. Minerals often can be described as solid solutions with varying compositions of ...

of the

manganese Manganese is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese was first isolated in the 1770s. It is a transition m ...

–iron wolframite

solid solution A solid solution, a term popularly used for metals, is a homogeneous mixture of two compounds in solid state and having a single crystal structure. Many examples can be found in metallurgy, geology, and solid-state chemistry. The word "solutio ...

series. The manganese endmember is hübnerite. Ferberite is a black

monoclinic In crystallography, the monoclinic crystal system is one of the seven crystal systems. A crystal system is described by three Vector (geometric), vectors. In the monoclinic system, the crystal is described by vectors of unequal lengths, as in t ...

mineral composed of iron(II) tungstate, Fe W O₄. Ferberite and hübnerite often contain both divalent cations of iron and manganese, with wolframite as the intermediate species for which the solid solution series is named.Wolframite on Mindat
/ref> Ferberite occurs as granular masses and as slender prismatic crystals. It has 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 4.5 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 7.4 to 7.5. Ferberite typically occurs in

pegmatite A pegmatite is an igneous rock showing a very coarse texture, with large interlocking crystals usually greater in size than and sometimes greater than . Most pegmatites are composed of quartz, feldspar, and mica, having a similar silicic c ...

granitic A granitoid is a broad term referring to a diverse group of coarse-grained igneous rocks that are widely distributed across the globe, covering a significant portion of the Earth's exposed surface and constituting a large part of the continental ...

greisens, and high temperature

hydrothermal Hydrothermal circulation in its most general sense is the circulation of hot water (Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, ''water'',Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with th ...

deposits. It is a minor ore of tungsten. Ferberite was discovered in 1863 in Sierra Almagrera,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, and named after the German

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

Moritz Rudolph Ferber (1805–1875). File:Ferberite-49138.jpg, Twinned Ferberite, Tazna Mine, Atocha-Quechisla District, Nor Chichas Province,

Potosí Department Potosí (; Southern Quechua, Quechua: ''P'utuqsi''; Aymara language, Aymara: ''Putusi'') is a Departments of Bolivia, department in southwestern Bolivia. Its area is 118,218 km2 and its population is 856,419 (2024 census). The capital is the ...

, Bolivia. 4.8 × 4.0 × 3.6 cm. Image:Ferbèrite-Tchéquie.jpg, Ferberite – Cínovec / Zinnwald, Erzgebirge; Krusné Hory Mts, Saxony and Ústí Region (Bohemia), Germany and Czech Republic

References

External links

Mineral Galleries
Iron(II) minerals Tungstate minerals Monoclinic minerals Minerals in space group 13 Minerals described in 1863 {{mineral-stub

See also

References

External links