Libethenite is a rare copper phosphate hydroxide mineral. It forms striking, dark green

orthorhombic In crystallography, the orthorhombic crystal system is one of the 7 crystal systems. Orthorhombic lattices result from stretching a cubic lattice along two of its orthogonal pairs by two different factors, resulting in a rectangular prism with a r ...

crystals. It was discovered in 1823 in Ľubietová, Slovakia and is named after the German name of that locality (''Libethen''). Libethenite has also been found in the

Miguel Vacas Mine --> Miguel is a given name and surname, the Portuguese and Spanish form of the Hebrew name Michael. It may refer to: Places *Pedro Miguel, a parish in the municipality of Horta and the island of Faial in the Azores Islands *São Miguel (disambi ...

, Conceição, Vila Viçosa, Évora District, Portugal, and in

Tier des Carrières Tier may refer to: Groupings *Organizational, a ranking relationship involving order in a collective and its subordinate components *Ranking, a relationship involving order between a set of observations or variables *Data center tiers, Telecommu ...

, Cahai, Vielsaim,

Stavelot Massif The Stavelot Massif is a geological massif in the Belgian Ardenne (geologically a part of the Rhenish Massif). Most of the massif crops out in Belgium, but a small part lies across the border with Germany. The massif consists of early Paleozoi ...

Luxembourg Province Luxembourg (french: Luxembourg ; nl, Luxemburg ; german: Luxemburg ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; wa, Lussimbork), also called Belgian Luxembourg, is the southernmost Provinces of regions in Belgium, province of Wallonia and of Belgium. It borders on th ...

, Belgium.

Appearance

Libethenite almost always takes the form of dark-green

crystals. It is often found in clusters with other libethenite crystals.

Formation

Libethenite is found in the oxidized zone of copper ore deposits. It is most often formed from the weathering of phosphate rocks such as

apatite Apatite is a group of phosphate minerals, usually hydroxyapatite, fluorapatite and chlorapatite, with high concentrations of OH−, F− and Cl− ions, respectively, in the crystal. The formula of the admixture of the three most common e ...

, monazite, and

xenotime Xenotime is a rare-earth phosphate mineral, the major component of which is yttrium orthophosphate ( Y P O4). It forms a solid solution series with chernovite-(Y) ( Y As O4) and therefore may contain trace impurities of arsenic, as well as si ...

. There have been no confirmed findings of primary libethenite, although a probable case has been reported.

References

Copper(II) minerals Phosphate minerals Orthorhombic minerals Minerals in space group 58 {{phosphate-mineral-stub