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Formula: Cu2+3Zn6Te6+2O12(OH)6.(Ag,Pb,☐)Cl
Tellurite
Crystal System: Trigonal
Specific gravity: 6.05 measured, 4.82 calculated
Hardness: 3
Streak: Pale blue, almost white
Colour: Blue
Environments
Quetzalcoatlite is found as a secondary mineral in some oxidised telluride-bearing ore bodies
(Webmin).
Localities
At the type locality, the Bambollita Mine, moctezuma, Moctezuma Municipality, Sonora, Mexico,
quetzalcoatlite was found only in the very richest pieces of ore. Usually these are spectacular masses or
nuggets of hessite with minor galena
and bornite. The gangue is
rhyolite so severely altered that only a variety of
clays (kaolinite, dickite and
others) and quartz remain. The
primary ore grains replace this altered rock or are
embedded in thin stringers of coarse baryte. Incipient oxidation has
occurred in these samples. Galena is thinly rimmed with
cerussite, brilliant azurite
crystals film bornite, and pitted surfaces on
hessite grains are implanted with
chlorargyrite and stubby prisms of
teineite. Quetzalcoatlite occurs in such material as minute
crystalline crusts or sprays of needles in thin fractures. Often these fractures are filled with
dickite, which is stained a pea green colour with an amorphous
copper-tellurium compound. This
compound corrodes and partly replaces quetzalcoatlite
(MM 39.261-263).
Quetzalcoatlite from the Bambollita Mine -
Image
At the Old Guard mine, Tombstone, Tombstone Mining District, Cochise County, Arizona, USA, quetzalcoatlite
is associated with khinite,
dugganite, chlorargyrite
and gold
(HOM).
The Tintic Mining District, Utah, USA, has hosted some of the finest specimens of quetzalcoatlite in the
world. It has been reported from the Centennial Eureka, Trixie and North Star mines. It was first found in the
Centennial Eureka mine, where it occurred with other tellurium oxysalt
species. It was later identified in several specimens from the Trixie mine, and finally from the upper dumps of the
North Star mine. At all three localities, quetzalcoatlite occurs on a matrix of
quartz; specimens from the Trixie mine, however, show unique associations
of xocomecatlite and gold, and
they are lacking at both the North Star and Centennial Eureka mines. At both of the latter two mines,
quetzalcoatlite occurs with utahite,
leisingite and
eurekadumpite, as elongated, pale blue to medium-blue fibrous crystals
in bundles and sprays not exceeding 2 mm in size
(MinRec 55.2.218-220).
Quetzalcoatlite from Tintic - Image
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