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Formula: KCu5O(VO4)3
Vanadate
Crystal System: Triclinic
Specific gravity: 4.54 calculated
Hardness: 3½ to 4
Streak: Yellowish brown
Colour: Golden brown to reddish brown
Environments
Starovaite is a relatively new mineral, approved in 2011.
Localities
At the type locality, the Yadovitaya fumarole, Second scoria cone, Northern Breakthrough, Great Fissure eruption,
Tolbachik Volcanic field, Milkovsky District, Kamchatka Krai, Russia, numerous gas vents at the apical parts of the
cone are still hot, with temperatures up to 480oC measured in 2010. The Yadovitaya fumarole is a cave about
1.5 m wide and 2 m deep. The temperature inside Yadovitaya is still high, up to 340oC in 2010. Walls of the
cave are covered by thick incrustations of different minerals, mainly sulphates. Mineral associations of fumarole
sublimate crusts are different in different parts of the cave.
Starovaite is a rare mineral; it was found only on the surface of coarse crystals, up to 1 mm in size, of
dark green lammerite typically located on fine-crystalline crusts of
iron-black hematite covering the surface of
basaltic scoria. Other
associated minerals are palmierite,
tenorite, piypite,
langbeinite,
rutile-tripuhyite,
orthoclase-filatovite,
lyonsite, pseudolyonsite,
paralammerite,
calciolangbeinite and
cupromolybdite. The hydrous
copper chlorides belloite and
avdoninite, and the chloride-sulphate
chlorothionite are
secondary minerals in this assemblage.
Starovaite forms prismatic, sometimes lath- or bar-shaped crystals up to 3 x 6 x 20 mm3 in size,
or longprismatic crystals up to 1 x 3 x 70 mm3 that are typically divergent and curved. They are combined
in sprays as sheaf-like aggregates or in almost monomineralic, thin crystalline crusts up to 0.3 x 0.5 mm2
in size
(EJM 25.1.91-96).
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