Pyromorphite

ID	74
Mineral	Pyromorphite
Location	Wheatley Mines - Phoenixville - Schuylkill - United States of America
Fluorescence	LW-UV: close SW-UV: close
Mindat.org	View Pyromorphite information at mindat.org

Mindat data

ID	3320
Long ID	1:1:3320:2
Formula	`Pb₅(PO₄)₃Cl`
IMA Status	0 1
Other Occurrences	A secondary mineral found in the oxidised zones of lead ore deposits.
Discovery Year	1813
Diapheny	Transparent,Translucent
Cleavage	In traces on {10_11}.
Tenacity	brittle
Colour	Green to dark green, yellow, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green, orangish-yellow, shades of brown, white and colourless; colourless or faintly tinted in transmitted light.
Hardness (min)	3.5
Hardness (max)	4.0
Lustre	Resinous to sub-adamantine
About the name	Originally called Grön Blyspat and Minera plumbi viridis by Johan Gottschalk Wallerius in 1748 and, later, Mine de plumb verte in 1753. An author named "Schultze", possibly Christian Friedrich Schultze [1730-1775 of Dresden, Germany] used the descriptive terms grünbleierz and braunbleierz in 1761 onward that have been subsequently attributed to Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1791. Named pyromorphite in 1813 by Johann Friedrich Ludwig Hausmann from the Greek for "fire" and "form", because, after being melted into a globule, a sample will begin to take on a crystalline shape during cooling. Hausmann also used the name traubenblei in 1813. Additional names have been introduced for minerals that were thought to be something other than pyromorphite including: polysphaerite by August Breithaupt in 1832, nuissierite by G. Barruel in 1836, miesite by August Breithaupt in 1841, cherokine by Charles U. Shepard in 1857, plumbeine and sexagulit by August Breithaupt in 1863, and collieite by Robert Brown in 1927.
Streak	White
Crystal System	Hexagonal
Cleavage Type	Poor/Indistinct
Fracture type	Irregular/Uneven,Sub-Conchoidal
Morphology	Crystals prismatic [0001] and usually simple, showing {10_10}, {0001}, {10_11}; barrel-shaped, spindle-shaped, and sometimes equant; terminations may be cavernous ("hopper" or "skeletal"); more rarely tabular {0001} or pyramidal; sometimes in branching groups of prismatic crystals in parallel positions, tapering to points; may also be globular, reniform, wart-like with sub-columnar structure, and granular. Crystals may show concentric growth patterns, probably due to P/As content variation.
Twinning	Very rare on {11_22} {10_10} at Puech de Compolibat (Mills et al., 2012)
UV	May be yellow to orange in SW and LW
key_elements	0 1
shortcode_ima	Pym
Group	Apatite Group

Price: € 10

Dimensions: Not registered

Weight: Not registered

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Notes:

Symbol	Element
Cl	Chlorine
O	Oxygen
P	Phosphorus
Pb	Lead

Pyromorphite

Mindat data

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