Images
Formula: Fe3+2Te6+O6.3H2O
Tellurate
Crystal System: Hexagonal
Specific gravity: 3.9 measured, 4.01 calculated
Hardness: 3
Colour: Deep yellow, also golden brown to brown
Fluorescence: Not fluorescent under UV
Solubility: Soluble in cold dilute hydrochloric acid (Dana)
Environments
Cuzticite is a very rare mineral.
Localities
At the type locality, the Moctezuma Mine, Moctezuma, Moctezuma Municipality, Sonora, Mexico, cuzticite is
found as part of a suite of oxidised ores including emmonsite,
schmitterite, kuranakhite
and eztlite. It forms yellowish to brownish spherulitic crusts with a
scaly structure. The matrix is an intensely silicified and brecciated
rhyolite
vitrophyre cemented by
quartz and carrying pyrite and
tellurides (probably gold
tellurides or native gold and
tellurium). Goethite first
replaced the pyrite and encrusted nearby fracture surfaces while
tellurium weathered to
emmonsite. Continuing oxidation dissolved most
emmonsite, and the tellurium
released may have reacted with earlier goethite and other iron oxides to
produce cuzticite, eztlite, and
kuranakhite.
Crystallized cuzticite forms warty, even stalactitic crusts on fracture surfaces around the
pyrite
(Minrec 55.6.840).
Back to Minerals