Calumetite is a natural rarely occurring mineral. It was discovered in 1963 at the Centennial Mine near

Calumet, Michigan Calumet ( or ) is a village in Calumet Township, Houghton County, in the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, that was once at the center of the mining industry of the Upper Peninsula. Also known as Red Jacket, the village includes the C ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Calumetite was first discovered along with anthonyite. It has a chemical formula of .

History

Calumetite was discovered in 1963 at the

Centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at a ...

Mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

. It is named after the locality where it was found. The Centennial Mine is in Houghton County in Calumet, Michigan. The Centennial Mine has produced other copper minerals. Calumetite has been found to occur in

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

cavities; as painting in

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...

and

frescos Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

; and also as

corrosive A corrosive substance is one that will damage or destroy other substances with which it comes into contact by means of a chemical reaction. Etymology The word ''corrosive'' is derived from the Latin verb ''corrodere'', which means ''to gnaw'', ...

products on

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

items. It is found in association with

tremolite Tremolite is a member of the amphibole group of silicate minerals with composition: Ca2(Mg5.0-4.5Fe2+0.0-0.5)Si8O22(OH)2. Tremolite forms by metamorphism of sediments rich in dolomite and quartz. Tremolite forms a series with actinolite and ferro ...

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

epidote Epidote is a calcium aluminium iron sorosilicate mineral. Description Well developed crystals of epidote, Ca2Al2(Fe3+;Al)(SiO4)(Si2O7)O(OH), crystallizing in the monoclinic system, are of frequent occurrence: they are commonly prismatic in habi ...

monazite Monazite is a primarily reddish-brown phosphate mineral that contains rare-earth elements. Due to variability in composition, monazite is considered a group of minerals. The most common species of the group is monazite-(Ce), that is, the cerium- ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

cuprite Cuprite is an oxide mineral composed of copper(I) oxide Cu2O, and is a minor ore of copper. Its dark crystals with red internal reflections are in the isometric system hexoctahedral class, appearing as cubic, octahedral, or dodecahedral forms, o ...

atacamite Atacamite is a copper halide mineral: a copper(II) chloride hydroxide with formula Cu2Cl(OH)3. It was first described for deposits in the Atacama Desert of Chile in 1801 by D. de Fallizen. The Atacama Desert is also the namesake of the mineral. ...

, buttgenbachite,

malachite Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures ...

paratacamite Paratacamite is a mineral in the halide minerals category. Its chemical formula is . Its name is derived from its association with atacamite. It is found in Chile, Botallack Mine in Cornwall, Broken Hill, Australia, and in Italy in Capo Calamita ...

, and anthonyite. Calumet, the locality where calumetite was found was once considered a

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

industry. The Centennial Mine produced approximately 37 million pounds of refined copper before it was closed down in 1966 and overtaken.

Physical properties

Calumetite occurs as a brilliant azure to

powder blue __NOTOC__ Powder blue is a pale shade of blue. As with most colours, there is no absolute definition of its exact hue. Originally, ''powder blue'', in the 1650s, was powdered smalt (cobalt glass) used in laundering and dyeing applications, and ...

mineral. It has a hardness of 2 with good cleavage along the direction and belongs to the

orthorhombic In crystallography, the orthorhombic crystal system is one of the 7 crystal systems. Orthorhombic lattices result from stretching a cubic lattice along two of its orthogonal pairs by two different factors, resulting in a rectangular prism with a r ...

crystal system. Calumetite has a bluish-white streak. Its luster is pearly on cleavage. Calumetite has a

brittle A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it fractures with little elastic deformation and without significant plastic deformation. Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength. Bre ...

tenacity and is semitransparent. The specific gravity of calumetite could not be measured because of the difficulty in separating the

and

from the calumetite mineral coating them.William A. Sidney (1963) Anthonyite and Calumetite, two new minerals from the Michigan Copper District. The American Mineralogist, 48, 614-619

Geologic occurrence

Calumetite was discovered with Anthonyite in 1963. Other copper minerals have been linked to calumetite which include copper, cuprite, malachite, atacamite, paratacamite, buttgenbachite. The minerals were found in the centennial mine which is known to yield copper minerals. Calumetite has been found in

cavities. Calumetite has been stated to be a naturally occurring mineral. It was prepared with ammonium chloride by means of the lime blue recipe which showed that the mineral is synthetic. Calumetite was first discovered in calumet Michigan but has since been observed in other mines near the Calumet mine. It was suggested that calumetite is not a post-mine evaporate because of the mode of occurrence. Calumetite is insoluble in

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...

and water, and soluble in cold dilute acids.

Chemical properties and uses

Calumetite has been noted to be useful in paintings on canvas and fresco.Krekel Christopher., Polborn Kurt (2003) Lime Blue: A Mediaeval Pigment for Wall Paintings? Studies in Conservation, 48, 171-182.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Entry on webmineral

Handbook of Mineralogy
Copper(II) minerals Halide minerals Orthorhombic minerals Houghton County, Michigan