Good day dear Hive community, first of all I would like to welcome you to my new post and hope you are all doing well! Today I would like to bring you a mineral a little closer and hope you can learn something new about this important topic.
Here you can see a rather rare mineral of the class of arsenate, vandates and phosphates, which is also known as Scorodite. The formation is due to weathering and to go into it more precisely, it arises in iron or arsenic deposits as a secondary mineral. The primary color is gray, but it can also be black, violet, blue, yellow or brown and the appearance can be glassy or transparent. A characteristic property of interest is that when you keep the mineral in the fire, a smell arises that is somewhat reminiscent of garlic and this property was also a factor in naming and it became known by the mineralogist August Breithaupt (1791 - 1873) who referred to the Greek word for garlic scorodion. Even if the mineral is heated in a different way, this smell is created, which can be attributed to the content of arsenic. The most important places of discovery are England, USA, Brazil, China or Germany and it is often found together with other minerals such as pyrite, adamite or goethite. Due to the structure, it is not really suitable for the production of jewelry and there are not many areas of application for which Scorodite is used from a commercial point of view. In the past, it was also used for the extraction of arsenic, which was used for various pest products, and also in medicine, it was used earlier and processed into powder to use it against ulcers.
Thanks a lot for stopping by and I hope you like my new contribution! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!