Sulfosalt minerals

Sulfosalt minerals are those complex sulfide minerals with the general formula: AmBnSp; where A represents a metal such as copper, lead, silver, iron and rarely mercury, zinc, vanadium; B usually represents semi-metal such as arsenic, antimony, bismuth and rarely germanium, or metals like tin and rarely vanadium; and S is sulfur or rarely selenium or/and tellurium.[1] The Strunz classification includes the sulfosalts in a sulfides and sulfosalts superclass.[1] A group which have a similar appearing formulas are the sulfarsenides (for example cobaltite (Co,Fe)AsS). In sulfarsenides the arsenic substitutes for sulfur whereas in the sulfosalts the arsenic substitutes for a metal cation.[2]

There are about 200 known sulfosalt minerals. Examples include:[3]

Nickel–Strunz Classification -02- Sulfosalts

IMA-CNMNC proposes a new hierarchical scheme (Mills et al., 2009). This list uses the Classification of Nickel–Strunz (10 ed, pending publication).

Class: sulfosalts

References

  1. ^ a b "Strunz classification of sulfides and sulfosalts". Mindat. http://www.mindat.org/strunz.php?a=2. 
  2. ^ Klein, Cornelis and Cornelius S. Hurlbut, 1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York ISBN 0-471-80580-7
  3. ^ Palache, C., H. Berman, and C. Frondel (1944) Dana’s system of mineralogy, (7th edition), v. I, pp. 348-350