Formula: Zn7(CO3)2(OH)10
Anhydrous carbonate containing hydroxyl
Crystal System: Monoclinic
Specific gravity: 3.51 measured, 3.55 calculated
Hardness: 3 to 4
Streak: White
Colour: Colourless, light grey in aggregates
Environments:
Sclarite is a very rare secondary zinc carbonate, known mainly from a single
specimen from the type locality, the Franklin Mine, Franklin, Sussex county, New Jersey, USA. The sclarite occurs as tiny bladed
crystals or spherules in veinlets in willemite -
franklinite ore without calcite, possibly
of hydrothermal origin, from a metamorphosed stratiform zinc orebody
(Webmin, Mindat).
Associated minerals here include secondary
zincite, willemite,
franklinite, rhodochrosite,
leucophoenicite, gageite and
chlorophoenicite
(Mindat, HOM, Dana).
A specimen has been found where the exposed surface is coated unevenly with sparse
leucophoenicite
and dense, abundant, microcrystalline, fibrous coatings of gageite and sparse
secondary zincite. Upon these minerals
are l mm spherules of rhodochrosite, additional
gageite and chlorophoenicite; these
are coated,in turn, and unevenly, with very sparse sclarite, which is intimately associated with
secondary
zincite and an unnamed, zinc-magnesium carbonate mineral.
Willemite is present throughout this
secondary assemblage, occurring as a fine
dust-like dispersal of microcrystallites
(AM 74.1355-1359).
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