Babingtonite is a

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

inosilicate Silicate minerals are rock-forming minerals made up of silicate groups. They are the largest and most important class of minerals and make up approximately 90 percent of Earth's crust. In mineralogy, silica (silicon dioxide, ) is usually consid ...

mineral with the formula Ca₂( Fe, Mn)Fe Si₅ O₁₄(O H). It is unusual in that iron(III) completely replaces the aluminium so typical of silicate minerals. It is a very dark green to black translucent (in thin crystals or splinters) mineral crystallizing in the

triclinic 180px, Triclinic (a ≠ b ≠ c and α ≠ β ≠ γ ) In crystallography, the triclinic (or anorthic) crystal system is one of the 7 crystal systems. A crystal system is described by three basis vectors. In the triclinic system, the crystal is ...

system with typically radial short prismatic clusters and druzy coatings. It occurs with

zeolite Zeolites are microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate materials commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, oxygen, and have the general formula ･y where is either a metal ion or H+. These pos ...

minerals in cavities in

volcanic rock Volcanic rock (often shortened to volcanics in scientific contexts) is a rock formed from lava erupted from a volcano. In other words, it differs from other igneous rock by being of volcanic origin. Like all rock types, the concept of volcanic r ...

s. Babingtonite contains both iron(II) and iron(III) and shows weak

magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...

. It has a

Mohs hardness The Mohs scale of mineral hardness () is a qualitative ordinal scale, from 1 to 10, characterizing scratch resistance of various minerals through the ability of harder material to scratch softer material. The scale was introduced in 1812 by th ...

of 5.5 to 6 and a

specific gravity Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity for liquids is nearly always measured with respect to water (molecule), wa ...

of 3.3. It was first described in 1824 from samples from

Arendal Arendal () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Agder counties of Norway, county in southeastern Norway. Arendal belongs to the Districts of Norway, region of Southern Norway, Sørlandet. The administrative centre of the munici ...

Aust-Agder Aust-Agder (, en, "East Agder") was a county (''fylke'') in Norway until 1 January 2020, when it was merged with Vest-Agder to form Agder county. In 2002, there were 102,945 inhabitants, which was 2.2% of Norway's population. Its area was . The ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

(which is its type locality) and was named after the

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

William Babington (1757–1833). It is the official mineral (mineral emblem) of the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. The first published report of babingtonite in Massachusetts was by Francis Alger in 1844, who credited

Thomas Nuttall Thomas Nuttall (5 January 1786 – 10 September 1859) was an England, English botany, botanist and zoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841. Nuttall was born in the village of Long Preston, near Settle, North Yorkshire, S ...

with its discovery in Charlestown (now Somerville). The location was the Granite Street quarry, formerly known as the Milk Row quarry.

Image gallery

File:Babingtonite-rare08-2-13a.jpg, Jet black babingtonite from Lane Quarry, Northfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts, USA 8202M-babingtonite.jpg, Triclinic crystals of babingtonite with prehnite, from Qiaojia, Qiaojia Co., Zhaotong, Yunnan, China File:Babingtonite-Prehnite-bab03b.jpg, Black babingtonite which covers a matrix of botryoidal, green prehnite, and a large, colorless, doubly terminated quartz crystal File:Babingtonite-Prehnite-230568.jpg, Babingtonite (dark) on

Prehnite Prehnite is an inosilicate of calcium and aluminium with the formula: Ca2Al(AlSi3O10)(OH)2. Limited Fe3+ substitutes for aluminium in the structure. Prehnite crystallizes in the orthorhombic crystal system, and most often forms as stalactitic or bo ...

, Qiaojia,

Qiaojia County Qiaojia County () is a county in the northeast of Yunnan province, China, bordering Sichuan province to the north and west. The population was 625,000 in 2019, 33,200 of whom belonged to ethnic minorities. It is both the southernmost and westernmo ...

Yunnan Province Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

, China

References

External links

Mineral galleries
{{Manganese minerals Calcium minerals Manganese minerals Iron(II,III) minerals Inosilicates Symbols of Massachusetts Triclinic minerals Minerals in space group 2