421 - Siderite

ID	421
Mineral	Siderite
Location	Zillertal - Austria
Fluorescence	LW-UV: close SW-UV: close
Mindat.org	View Siderite information at mindat.org

ID	3647
Long ID	1:1:3647:0
Formula	`Fe(CO₃)`
IMA Status	0 1
Other Occurrences	Most often found in bedded sedimentary deposits with a biological component, with shales, clays and coal beds - suggesting that the siderite is biogenically created under low-oxygen and low-Ph conditions. It is also found in metamorphosed sedimentary rocks as more massively crystalline material, as a primary gangue mineral in hydrothermal deposits, and in pegmatites, including nepheline syenite pegmatites; as bog deposits.
Industrial	An ore of iron when found in sufficient volumes to be economically recoverable.
Diapheny	Translucent
Cleavage	Perfect on {10_11}.
Tenacity	brittle
Colour	Yellowish-brown to greyish-brown, pale yellow to tannish, grey, brown, green, red, black and, rarely, colourless; tarnished iridescent at times; colourless to yellow and yellow-brown in transmitted light.
Hardness (min)	3.5
Hardness (max)	4.5
Lustre	Vitreous
About the name	Named in 1845 by Wilhelm Karl von Haidinger from the Greek "σίδηρος" (sideros), "iron", in allusion to its composition.
Streak	White
Crystal System	Trigonal
Cleavage Type	Perfect
Fracture type	Irregular/Uneven,Conchoidal
Morphology	Crystals usually rhombohedral {10_11} or {011_2}, often curved or with composite faces; also more rarely thin to thick tabular {0001}, prismatic [0001] with {11_20}, or scalenohedral; most often found as massive material, either fine-grained in sedimentary settings or massively crystalline in metamorphic settings; may also be botryoidal or globular with a fibrous internal structure.
Twinning	On {01_12}, lamellar, uncommon, with translation gliding on {0001} or {10_11}. On {0001}, rare.
shortcode_ima	Sd
Group	Calcite Group

Symbol	Element
C	Carbon
Fe	Iron
O	Oxygen

Siderite

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