THE MINERAL LINNAEITE

  • Chemistry: Co3S4, Cobalt Sulfide.
  • Class: Sulfides
  • Uses: As an important ore of cobalt and as mineral specimens.
  • Specimens
Linnaeite is not a well known mineral but is still an important ore of the strategically valuable metal cobalt. It commonly forms with other cobalt sulfides but usually as just a trace. In a few areas it has formed in large quantities and has become a valuable ore in mines in Zaire and Zambia.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LINNAEITE:

  • Color is gray to white, usually with a tarnish if exposed to weathering.
  • Luster is metallic.
  • Transparency crystals are opaque.
  • Crystal System is isometric.
  • Crystal Habits include small octahedral crystals, usually well formed, and as granular masses in sulfide rocks.
  • Cleavage is imperfect.
  • Fracture is uneven.
  • Hardness is 4.5 - 5.5
  • Specific Gravity is approximately 4.8 (average for metallic minerals)
  • Steak is black.
  • Other Characteristics: A red to violet tarnish forms on weathered specimens.
  • Associated Minerals include covellite, chalcocite bornite and chalcopyrite
  • Notable Occurrences include Katanga, Zaire; Zambia; Maryland and California, USA and Seigen, Germany.
  • Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, streak, associations, tarnish and color.
LINNAEITE specimens:
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LINNAEITE specimen lnn-1
$ 27.00
Dims: 0.94x0.87x0.76" (2.39x2.21x1.94cm)
Wt: 0.54oz (15.3g)
Gladhammar, Sweden
This is a complex specimen with many minerals. There are at least 4 good octahedral crystals of linnaeite, which are gray in color, with a metallic luster, and a slightly red irridescent tarnish. The other minerals include quartz, a brassy metallic sulfide which may be pyrite or chalcopyrite, a silvery metal which may be more linnaeite (or some other mineral, of course), some quartz, a red, dull weathering product (it looks like limonite but does not rub off easily), some black mineral, and a few patches that look like biotite but I suspect are something else.
no photo
lnn-1 ($ 27.00)
Gladhammar, Sweden
 

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