Fettelite, also known as sanguinite, is a mercury-
sulfosalt mineral with the chemical formula Ag
16HgAs
4S
15. The mineral was first described by Wang and Paniagua (1996) who named it after M. Fettel, a German field geologist who collected the first samples from
Odenwald
The Odenwald () is a low mountain range in the German states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
Location
The Odenwald is located between the Upper Rhine Plain with the Bergstraße and the ''Hessisches Ried'' (the northeastern section ...
.
It was first collected in the Nieder-Beerbach mine, 10 km south of
Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...
,
Odenwald
The Odenwald () is a low mountain range in the German states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
Location
The Odenwald is located between the Upper Rhine Plain with the Bergstraße and the ''Hessisches Ried'' (the northeastern section ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. Its normal occurrence is in
hydrothermal veins, which can cut
gabbro
Gabbro () is a phaneritic (coarse-grained), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling of magnesium-rich and iron-rich magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is che ...
-
diorite
Diorite ( ) is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is intermediate in composition between low-silic ...
intrusives. It is closely related to other rare minerals like
dervillite,
daomanite,
vaughanite and
criddleite which are also found in the same type locality as fettelite.
[
Fettelite occurs as clusters of hexagonal flakes. These flakes can get up to 0.2 mm across and around 5-10 µm thick. In more complex hexagonal tablets, somewhat larger sub parallel aggregates can be measured.][ Mandarino, J.A (1997) Abstracts of new mineral description The Mineralogical Record, 28, 141-143. ] The birefringence of Fettelite is moderate white to grayish brown.[
]
References
Arsenic minerals
Mercury(II) minerals
Silver minerals
Sulfosalt minerals
Monoclinic minerals
Minerals in space group 5
Minerals described in 1996
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