cobaltite

[kə′bȯl‚tīt]

(mineralogy)

CoAsS A silver-white mineral with a metallic luster that crystallizes in the isometric system, resembling crystals of pyrite; it is one of the chief ores of cobalt. Also known as cobalt glance; gray cobalt; white cobalt.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Cobaltite

a mineral, cobalt sulfoarsenide, CoAsS; one of the complex sulfoarsenides. Cobaltite contains 35.41 percent Co, 45.26 percent As, and 19.33 percent S; the cobalt may be partially replaced by iron and nickel (varieties of ferrocobaltite and nickel cobaltite). Cobaltite crystallizes in a cubic system, existing as crystals of cubic habit, as well as in more complex combined forms (pentagonal dodecahedron, octahedron, and so on). Granular aggregates are the most common. Cobaltite is yellowish white in color, tinged with pink; it is nontransparent and has a metallic luster. Hardness on the mineralogical scale, 5.5; density, 6,100–6,400 kg/m³. Cobaltite usually occurs in contactmetasomatic deposits together with pyrrhotite, pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, and other sulfides, in hydrothermal gold-quartz lodes, and in lodes containing Co-Ni-Ag-Bi-U formations. Cobaltite is one of the main ore minerals for the preparation of cobalt and its alloys and compounds.

G. P. BARSANOV

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References in periodicals archive

Cobaltites show significant catalytic activity [1].

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The Chicago ore was high in sulfide content and consisted of unusually vuggy pyrite, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite and cobaltite. Non-sulfide minerals included quartz, siderite, calcite and minor amounts of vivianite and ludlamite (Douglas, 1956).

The Blackbird mine: the Blackbird mine, located in east-central Idaho, has the dual distinction of being the only primary producer of cobalt in the United States, and also the source of some of the world's finest crystals of ludlamite and vivianite. The mine closed in 1982 and is currently undergoing environmental remediation, so it is unlikely that any additional specimens will ever be collected there

[3] first reported the superconductivity behavior (Tc ~ 5K) in the hydrated form of sodium cobaltite [Na.sub.x][Co.sub.2][O.sub.4] x y[H.sub.2]O, as displayed in Fig.

Overview of thermoelectric sodium cobaltite: [Na.sub.x][Co.sub.2][O.sub.4]

Cobaltite, one of the most recently formed cobalt sulfarsenides, occurs in minute octahedral crystals associated with erythrite in a safflorite vein.

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Finally, sulfides (pyrite, pyrrhotite, lollingite, chalcopyrite, cobaltite, bismuthinite) were deposited.

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In addit ion there were Scandinavian classics like loose, sharp 2-cm pyritohedrons of cobaltite and sharp, lustrous pseudo-octahedrons of glaucodot from Sweden; well crystallized leucophanite, columbite and thortveitite from Norway; and richly brownish red, euhedral crystals of eudialyte to 2 cm in complex ultra-alkaline matrix, not from the Kola Peninsula, Russia, but from 19th-century localities in Greenland.

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Cobaltite occurs rarely in the cleft fillings with pyrite and chlorite, as crystals of octahedral, cuboctahedral and tetrahedral habits.

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Cobaltite has never been reported from the stratiform and vein-like deposits of Katanga; there is practically no arsenic present in those orebodies.

Cobalt minerals of the Katanga Crescent, Congo