Skutterudite Mineral

Hey dear Hive friends, first of all I would like to wish you a pleasant day and hope you are all doing well and you also have a good start to the new week. In this article, I would like to introduce a mineral a little more closely and hope you can learn something new.

Here you can see a rather rare mineral which is known under the name Skutterudite and in the past it was still known under the name smaltine and was based on the color pigment smalt which was used by many artists. The final name can be traced back to the mineralogist Wilhelm Ritter von Haidinger (1795 - 1871) who named the mineral as often after the place of discovery which is located in Norway. The formation can be traced back to hydrothermal conditions and the most important places of discovery are Norway, Australia, Mexico, Canada and depending on the location, it can be found with other minerals such as bismuth, calcite or quartz. In the Middle Ages, the mineral was still used for the production of color pigments and nowadays, from an industrial point of view, it is mainly used as an ore for the extraction of cobalt or nickel and it is very important to know that it is toxic due to the high proportion of arsenic and you have to handle it carefully! As with other minerals that contain a lot of arsenic, by heating an garlic-like smell is created and in addition to its use as ore, it is also particularly popular for mineral collectors.

Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you like my new entry! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!