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Formula: PbBi4S7
Sulphosalt, bismuth-bearing mineral
Crystal System: Orthorhombic
Specific gravity: 6.26 calculated
Hardness: 2½ to 3½
Streak: Grey
Colour: Silvery grey
Common impurities: Se
Environments
Localities
At the type Locality, La Fossa crater, Vulcano Island, Lipari, Eolie Islands, Messina Province, Sicily, Italy,
mozgovaite is an extremely rare species in the fumarolic encrustations. The holotype specimen consists of
some slender acicular crystals, usually about 100 microns in length.
The fumarole activity at the crater has shown great changes with time; the maximum temperature of the fumaroles,
measured in the inner north slope of the La Fossa crater, varied between 334oC and 695oC
since 1987.
In 1987 (maximum temperature about 330oC), sulphur,
salammoniac and sassolite
were the only minerals deposited in the fumaroles.
In 1990 (maximum temperature greater than 600oC), in the hottest fumaroles, a new assemblage of
lead - bismuth sulphides and
sulphosalts began to deposit massively again, and their deposition was still continuing in 1999. The minerals
included galena,
cannizzarite,
wittite, galenobismutite,
bismuthinite, lillianite,
heyrovskýite and kirkiite
The mozgovaite holotype consists of a sample collected in 1993 from fumarole FF (temperature
607oC). In addition, another sample of mozgovaite was collected from fumarole FF in 1990
(temperature 607oC)
(CM 37.1499-1506).
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