Merenskyite is a rare telluride / bismuthinide mineral with the chemical formula .Webmineral data
/ref>Handbook of Mineralogy
/ref> It is an opaque white to light gray metallic mineral that occurs as inclusions within other minerals such as

chalcopyrite Chalcopyrite ( ) is a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. It has the chemical formula CuFeS2 and crystallizes in the tetragonal system. It has a brassy to golden yellow color and a Mohs scale, hardness of 3.5 to 4 ...

. It crystallizes in the

trigonal In crystallography, the hexagonal crystal family is one of the six crystal family, crystal families, which includes two crystal systems (hexagonal and trigonal) and two lattice systems (hexagonal and rhombohedral). While commonly confused, the tr ...

crystal system In crystallography, a crystal system is a set of point groups (a group of geometric symmetries with at least one fixed point). A lattice system is a set of Bravais lattices (an infinite array of discrete points). Space groups (symmetry groups ...

. Merenskyite was first described in 1966 for an occurrence in the

Merensky Reef The Merensky Reef is a layer of igneous rock in the Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) in the North West, Limpopo, Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa which together with an underlying layer, the Upper Group 2 Reef (UG2), contains most ...

of the Western

Bushveld Igneous Complex The Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) is the largest Layered intrusion, layered igneous intrusion within the Earth's Crust (geology), crust. It has been tilted and Erosion, eroded forming the outcrops around what appears to be the edge of a great Ba ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, and named for South African geologist

Hans Merensky Hans Merensky (16 March 1871 – 21 October 1952) was a South African geologist, prospector, scientist, conservationist and philanthropist. Early life and education Johannes "Hans" Merensky was born on 16 March 1871 at the Berlin Missionar ...

(1871–1952).Mindat.org
/ref>

References

{{Bismuthides Telluride minerals Bismuthide minerals Palladium minerals Platinum minerals Trigonal minerals Minerals in space group 164 Minerals described in 1966