Lazurite



Lazurite

A lazurite specimen
General
CategoryMineral
tectosilicate (Na,Ca)8(AlSiO4)6(SO4,S,Cl)2
Identification
ColorDeep blue to greenish blue
Isometric
Mohs Scale hardness5-5.5
Lustertranslucent
Refractive index1.5
Specific gravity2.4
Fusibility3.5
HCl

Lazurite is a lapis lazuli.

Lazurite is a deep blue to greenish blue. It has a pyrite.

Lazurite is a product of contact metamorphism of pyrite.

Other blue minerals such as the lazulite may be confused with lazurite, but are easily distinguished with careful examination. Lazurite at one time was used as a synonym for azurite.

Lazurite was first described in 1890 from the lapis lazuli district of Badakhshan, Afghanistan. The name is from the Persian lazward for blue.

References

  • Hurlbut, Cornelius S.; Klein, Cornelis, 1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed., Wiley, ISBN 0-471-80580-7
  • Mindat with location data
  • Mineral galleries
  • Webmineral data
v • d • e
Tourmaline
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lazurite". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.