FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[dontgogreen]

Here are some photos of a pyrrhotite and calcite from the Eagle Mine in Marquette Co, Michigan. The specimen is ~4cm tall, with a highly lustrous hoppered pyrrhotite crystal. I apologize as the photos are not the best quality and do not capture the quality of the specimen very well. Not to mention the horrific yellow lighting.

What are some other North American localities that produce well-crystallized pyrrhotite?

[GneissWare]

The yellow can be color corrected - its due to using tungsten lights with a camera white balanced for daylight.

[Pete Richards]

Beautiful pyrrhotites and pseudomorphs after pyrrhotite are found at Mont Saint-Hilaire - mostly micros.

[dontgogreen]

Thanks, these corrections look much better.

[Peter Megaw]

Sharp lustrous pyrrhotites to 60cm were found at Santa Eulalia, Chihuahua, Mexico, both as elongate hexagonal crystals and fat hexagonal plates. The district also produced numerous pyrite pseudomorphs after pyrrhotite.

Very similar blocky crystals have also been found at La Negra, Queretaro, Mexico

San Martin-Sabinas, Zacatecas produced sharp lustrous pyrrhotite crystals to 1 cm

[alfredo]

I found a nice TN-size pyrrhotite crystal at the Philips Pyrite Mine, Putnam Co., New York, but within a few months it first swelled up, separated into lamellae, then decomposed into sulphate slop :((

[Tony L. Potucek]

The Laxey Mine (Texas Orebody) and the Sonneman Mine at South Mountain, Owyhee County, Idaho USA both produced pyrrhotite as crystals associated with quartz.