Hey dear community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my new post and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! In this post, I would like to bring you a new mineral a little closer and hope you are able to expand your knowledge.
Here you can see a specimen of the mineral tetraedrite, which is a variety of fahlore and was named after the typical appearance of the crystals by the mineralogist Wilhelm von Haidinger (1795 - 1871). The crystals are somewhat reminiscent of the shape of a tetrahedron and depending on the place of discovery, the appearance can vary and often it has a typical gray or black color and the addition with other minerals can lead to changes in color. It can also happen that the color changes over a longer period of time or becomes black due to breakage or red due abrasions and a typical characteristic is the shiny surface and it also often tends to form twins. From an economic point of view, it is of particular interest as an ore and contains a high content of copper which can be up to 40% and it also contains sulfur, antimony, iron or silver and is distinguished from different variants which differ due to the content of the contained elements. It occurs relatively often and has already been discovered at several thousand locations worldwide, which makes it particularly lucrative for use as ore and the formation can be traced back to hydrothermal processes and in rarer cases it can also be formed by metamorphosis. It also enjoys huge popularity in the circles of collectors and is an interesting enrichment for the collection due to the diverse shapes of the crystals as well as the variety of the contained elements.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about minerals! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!