Weissite is a

telluride mineral A telluride mineral is a mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure for ...

, a copper telluride. Its chemical formula is . Weissite has hexagonal

crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of ordered arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from intrinsic nature of constituent particles to form symmetric patterns that repeat ...

. Its

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 ...

is 6 and its

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 ...

is 3. Occurrence is in

Gunnison County, Colorado Gunnison County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 16,918. The county seat is Gunnison, Colorado, Gunnison. The county was named for John W. Gunnison, a Unite ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

and

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It is also reported from

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

and Dalarna and

Värmland Värmland () is a ''Provinces of Sweden, landskap'' (historical province) in west-central Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Dalsland, Dalarna, Västmanland, and Närke, and is bounded by Norway in the west. Name Several Latinized version ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. Weissite occurs in

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 associated with

pyrite The mineral pyrite ( ), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

, native

tellurium Tellurium is a chemical element; it has symbol Te and atomic number 52. It is a brittle, mildly toxic, rare, silver-white metalloid. Tellurium is chemically related to selenium and sulfur, all three of which are chalcogens. It is occasionally fou ...

sylvanite Sylvanite or silver gold telluride, chemical formula , is the most common telluride of gold. Properties The gold:silver ratio varies from 3:1 to 1:1. It is a metallic mineral with a color that ranges from a steely gray to almost white. It is c ...

petzite The mineral petzite, Ag3 Au Te2, is a soft, steel-gray telluride mineral generally deposited by hydrothermal activity. It forms isometric crystals, and is usually associated with rare tellurium and gold minerals, often with silver, mercury, ...

rickardite Rickardite is a telluride mineral, a copper telluride (Cu7Te5) or Cu3-x (x = 0 to 0.36)Te2. It was first described for an occurrence in the Good Hope Mine, Vulcan district, Gunnison County, Colorado, US, and named for mining engineer Thomas Arthu ...

native sulfur Sulfur (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur ( Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form ...

native gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal, a group ...

calaverite Calaverite, or gold telluride, is an uncommon telluride (chemistry), telluride of gold, a metallic mineral with the chemical formula AuTe2, with approximately 3% of the gold Silver telluride, replaced by silver. It was first discovered in Calave ...

and

krennerite Krennerite is an orthorhombic gold telluride mineral which can contain variable amounts of silver in the structure. The formula is AuTe2, but specimen with gold substituted by up to 24% with silver have been found ( u0.77Ag0.24e2). Both of the c ...

. It was first described in 1927 for an occurrence in the Good Hope Mine in the Vulcan District of Gunnison County, Colorado. It was named for mine owner Louis Weiss.

References

* D. M. Chizhikov and V. P. Shchastlivyi, 1966, ''Tellurium and Tellurides'', Nauka Publishing, Moscow Copper minerals Telluride minerals Hexagonal minerals Minerals in space group 191 Minerals described in 1927 {{mineral-stub

See also

References