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Formula: Cu3FeS4
Sulphide
Crystal System: Hexagonal
Specific gravity: 4.2 calculated
Hardness: 2½ to 3½
Colour: Red-brown, bronzy brown or coppery red, like untarnished bornite
Luminescence: Not fluorescent under UV
Environments
Idaite is a lamellar, strongly anisotropic, bronze-coloured, decomposition product of
bornite, commonly associated with fine spindles of
chalcopyrite; apparently of
secondary origin, a first product of
secondary enrichment
(Mindat).
Localities
At the Skouriotissa mine, Skouriotissa, Nicosia District, Cyprus, idaite occurs at the contact of massive sulphide
ore with overlying well-bedded, ochreous sediments. It occurs as rims around, and
fracture fillings in,
chalcopyrite and is invariably rimmed with
covellite. The idaite was probably formed during oxidative leaching of
chalcopyrite by descending ferric sulphatebearing acid solutions produced
during the submarine oxidation of pyrite to
goethite of the ochre (a mixture of earthy minerals)
(AM 60.1013-1018).
Associated minerals include chalcopyrite,
bornite, pyrite,
sphalerite, chalcocite,
pyrrhotite and mackinawite
(HOM).
At the type locality, the Ida mine, Arandis Constituency, Erongo Region, Namibia, idaite is associated with
tenorite, sphalerite,
quartz, pyrrhotite,
pyrite, paramelaconite,
mackinawite, hematite,
digenite, delafossite,
cuprite, covellite,
copper, chalcopyrite and
bornite
(Mindat).
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