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Chalcanthite growth
  
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Paul S




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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 11:10    Post subject: Chalcanthite growth  

Because I collect crystals in their natural and synthetic form, I made some coppersulfate crystals to go with my chalcanthite specimen. I grew the coppersulfate on a piece of brick and they formed those nice deep blue triclinic crystals. (Sometimes those are sold as real chalcanthite, a well known fraud and it's still going on at places like eBay.)

However, after a while the coppersulfate crystals fell of their matrix and after some more time I saw tiny fibers coming out of the brick. I was amazed when I viewed it at 20x magnification, because the fibers looked just like natural chalcanthite! (See attached picture.)

So I started wondering about how such crystals actually grow, for it was clearly visible they grew outwards from inside the brick. They are very tiny, but keep on growing.

I think this is the same thing you can see on bricks of new buildings, when they turn white. I don't know what the exact mechanism is however, and I wondered if this kind of crystal growth can be seen with other minerals as well?



036.JPG
 Description:
Natural chalcanthite (top) and coppersulfate (bottom).
 Viewed:  31991 Time(s)

036.JPG


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David Von Bargen




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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 12:28    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

Also happens in native silver.
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pub1tzu




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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 12:47    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

I have two questions about chalcanthite.
1. How do you properly pronounce that mineral in English? Is there a website to get correct pronunciations of minerals?
OK that was two in one...
But my real 2nd question is about chalcanthite itself.
Like many other minerals, this one seems to have dubious origins...I know that it can be grown in a kitchen lab, and that it also occurs as a secondary mineral in post-mining areas?
Is there such a thing as "natural" calcanthite ie; something that grows in a "virgin" area that has never seen man's influence?
Thanks a bunch
Oh yeah, I have a bunch from the Planet Mine in Arizona, Michael Shannon collected it, and he said it was from deeper areas, he had to climb to and remove material to get to...so perhaps that answers my question, but I wanted to see what you folks had to say as well.

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Les Presmyk




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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 13:01    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

The "ch" is pronounced as a hard "c" or "k", the second "c" is also hard, and "th" is like in the word "the" so it is pronounced "kal-kan-thite. It is safe to assume that all chalcanthite is post mining and normally loses water so it decomposes and turns white. The Planet mine material is more stable and as long as you keep in a low humidity environment it should be okay. There are probably natural occurences of the mineral somewhere but it is so soluable, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find the mineral that is not the result of man's handiwork.
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John S. White
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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 13:10    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

The brick is porous and clearly has been saturated by copper sulfate in solution. As the solution evaporated, copper sulfate likely grew at the base of the crystals gradually pushing them upwards. This is often seen with ice crystals in mud and gypsum crystals of the ram's horn type.

Chalcanthite is pronounced kal - kan - thyte. The only book I am aware of with pronunciations is Chemical Index of Minerals by M. H. Hey, but even those are not all necessarily correct. Don't know about websites. There is a commercially available CD with audio pronunciations on it, The Photo-Atlas of Minerals. No one cares that much, however, so I would not worry about it.

Yes, there is perfectly natural chalcanthite, else it would not be a mineral species. There are numerous natural occurrences, far too many to attempt to list here. That from the Planet mine is iffy, there is a very good chance that it may not have formed were it not for the mining.

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Tracy




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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 13:30    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

I have a lovely "ram's horn-like" crystal with a label saying Patagonia Mtns., Santa Cruz County, AZ. Would this be a legitimate specimen?

As an aside, while I can clearly understand the distinction between deliberately lab-grown and naturally-occurring minerals, the boundary seems less clear if minerals form over the course of long-term, unrelated human activity. Is it a criterion that a "legitimate" mineral specimen has to have formed completely without human influence? Most of me wants to say yes but there's a little piece of me that is confused/uncertain...I can't quite put into words why that is.

Maybe this is a topic for a separate thread, if so sorry for derailing the current one.

- Tracy

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Paul S




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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 14:07    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

It would be interesting to discuss this idea of minerals on the boundary of natural and synthetic, so I took the liberty to start a new topic about it here: https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=10807

Very interesting input, I have my specimen of natural chalcanthite also from the Arizona Planet Mine.

It is indeed important to have proper storage for this kind of mineral. Coppersulfate will loose its water from its crystal lattice, mostly under the influence of water in the air. Even if stored in an air tight container it will slowly decompose. This will take quite a while however, so you will probably not notice it.

I'm going to experiment a bit more with bricks and coppersulfate and maybe I'll be able to grow a proper crust on it. I wonder how long it would take for the mineral to grow. It would make a very nice video if I could speed up the process. Maybe using some other chemicals will work as well.

I can clearly see on my specimen that one of the crystals that is still attached is slowely being lifted of the brick matrix by these hairy coppersulfate crystals. (See attached image.) It looks really funny, but it explains why all the normal crystals have fallen off.



059bew1.jpg
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Coppersulfate crystals, normal and 'hairy'.
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059bew1.jpg


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Pete Modreski
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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 14:35    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

Some thoughts about several aspects of this discussion...

I believe that the expansive force of growing crystals of various kinds of water-soluble salts is known to be a factor in the deterioration of building stones exposed to weather and salt-rich environments (due to sea spray, or salt used on roads & sidewalks).

I have a comment about natural vs. human-caused mineral formation--I'll post this on the separate new page created for this discussion.

Lastly--I believe the "Brits" sometimes pronounce these names with a soft "ch" as in cheese--e.g., chalcedony, chalcocite, chalcanthite, and so on; I know I once heard a lecturer pronounce chalcopyrite that way.

Cheers,
Pete Modreski
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Jordi Fabre
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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 14:47    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

Tom Tucker wrote:

For mineral pronounciation, try: https://www.webmineral.com (link normalized by FMF)

To publish links here please see -> https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=74 and https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=317
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Les Presmyk




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PostPosted: Mar 23, 2010 15:56    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

Another mineral that is being overlooked as part of this discussion is tincalconite after borax from Boron, Califonia. Based on photos I have seen, it would appear that a number of these specimens started out as crystallized borax growing in brine pools in the underground mine in Boron. If the brine pool is natural then the specimen is a mineral. If the next brine pool down the drift was dug by a miner, the resulting crystals are not the mineral borax but some synthetic analog, even though the brine solutions came from the same source. This assumes, of course, that some of the brine pools were naturally formed.

There were chalcanthite specimens collected in the southern Arizona locality as well. Both are attractive and seem to last much longer than most chalcanthite.
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PostPosted: Mar 24, 2010 14:50    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

I have been told that the vast majority of water-soluble borate specimens marketed from Boron, California, were actually grown in tanks, and from most perspectives should be considered artificial, although the seller considered them to be natural because the brine they grew in was natural. This is a fuzzy grey area. If indeed we do consider that to be natural, then by analogy we should also accept the "native" silicon and aluminium crystals that grew inside quartz glass tubes inserted into the Kudriavy volcano fumarole - they did afterall precipitate from a perfectly natural volcanic gas!
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Les Presmyk




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PostPosted: Mar 24, 2010 16:30    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

There is an interesting line. However, the pieces I have seen came out of sumps in the underground mine. If they are grown in any kind of containers, I don't care where the solution came from, that sounds man-made to me.
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Jean Sendero




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PostPosted: Mar 28, 2010 10:00    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

Most often, it looks like this underground. Not pretty crystals but a harden crust. This example is from one of the breccias in the Inguaran mining camp in Michoacan Mexico. The picture was taken in 1995.


1995 Inguaran Breccia with Chalcantite Hypolito.jpg
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Chalcanthite Crust from Inguaran
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1995 Inguaran Breccia with Chalcantite Hypolito.jpg


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John S. White
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PostPosted: Mar 28, 2010 13:35    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

Anyone interested in the ultimate in synthetic chalcanthite should check out this link:
https://shapeandcolour.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/roger-hiorns-seizure/
(link normalized by FMF)

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Paul S




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PostPosted: Mar 28, 2010 17:12    Post subject: Re: Chalcanthite growth  

Jean: that is a very nice photo, am I correct when I say that the coppersulfate was deposited by a stream carrying it down the sides of the rock? If that is true, it would explain that there are no clear crystals, they were formed almost like stalactites. Sedimentation of chalcanthite, very nice!

And that appartment is really special, I wish I could have seen it, for I guess it won't be open for public anymore. I like growing big crystals, but I think this will be beyond my budget and space for quite some time!
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