Mascagnite is a rare
ammonium sulfate
Ammonium sulfate (American English and international scientific usage; ammonium sulphate in British English); (NH4)2SO4, is an inorganic salt with a number of commercial uses. The most common use is as a soil fertilizer. It contains 21% nitrogen a ...
mineral (
N H4)
2 S O4. It crystallizes in 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 ...
system typically forming as stalactitic masses exhibiting good
cleavage. It is soft (not higher than 2.5 on the
Mohs Scale
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 ...
) and water-soluble. Optical properties are variable; the purest form is transparent and colorless, but opaque gray or yellow deposits are also known.
It occurs in
fumaroles
A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or other rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...
, as at
Mount Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of s ...
and associated with
coal seam fire
A coal-seam fire is a burning of an outcrop or underground coal seam. Most coal-seam fires exhibit smouldering combustion, particularly underground coal-seam fires, because of limited atmospheric oxygen availability. Coal-seam fire instances ...
s. It was named for Italian anatomist
Paolo Mascagni
Paolo Mascagni (25 January 1755 – 19 October 1815) was an Italian physician and anatomist. He is most well known for publishing the first complete description of the lymphatic system.
Biography Early life
Mascagni was born in the co ...
(1752–1815) who first described the mineral.
References
Ammonium minerals
Sulfate minerals
Orthorhombic minerals
Minerals in space group 62
Mount Vesuvius
{{sulfate-mineral-stub