It is sometimes difficult for foreigners to get permission to visit some places in China, particularly mining
areas, so you are unlikely to see this uranium deposit, but Guizhou Province has other wonders of nature that you
will never regret visiting, if you have the chance. There is the 255 ft high Huangguoshu waterfall, near Anshun city,
karst formations, and the stunning sacred mountain Fanjingshan, accessible, with considerable difficulty, from
Tongren.
Images
Formula: Sb2Se3
Selenide of antimony,
stibnite group
Crystal System: Orthorhombic
Specific gravity: 5.88 calculated
Hardness: 3½
Streak: Black
Colour: Black
Common impurities: Hg,Cu,As,S
Environments
Localities
At the type locality, U deposit No. 504, Kaiyang County, Guiyang, Guizhou, China, antimonselite is found in
uranium-bearing calcite veins in
a uranium - mercury -
molybdenum polymetallic deposit. It is very fine in grain size, no more
than twenty microns across, and occurs as anhedral grains and euhedral acicular crystals in radiating aggregates.
Associated minerals include coccinite,
ferroselite, clausthalite
and a number of unidentified selenium minerals. Other minerals in
association with antimonselite are pyrite,
colloidal pyrite, sphalerite,
galena, cinnabar,
uraninite, hematite and
calcite. Antimonselite was formed between 135oC and
148oC
(Acta Mineralogica Sinica 13.1.7-11).
Back to Minerals