Sphalerite
zinc-iron sulfide mineral
Sphalerite is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula (Zn, Fe)S. It is the most important ore of zinc. Sphalerite is found in a variety of deposit types, but it is primarily in sedimentary exhalative, Mississippi-Valley type, and volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. It is found in association with galena, chalcopyrite, pyrite (and other sulfides), calcite, dolomite, quartz, rhodochrosite, and fluorite.
German geologist Ernst Friedrich Glocker discovered sphalerite in 1847, naming it based on the Greek word sphălerós (σφαλερός), meaning 'deceiving', due to the difficulty of identifying the mineral.
In addition to zinc, sphalerite is an ore of cadmium, gallium, germanium, and indium. Miners have been known to refer to sphalerite as zinc blende, black-jack, and ruby blende. Marmatite is an opaque black variety with a high iron content.
Crystal habit and structure
Sphalerite crystallizes in the face-centered cubic zincblende crystal structure, which was named after the mineral. This structure is a member of the hextetrahedral crystal class (space group F43m). In the crystal structure, both the sulfur and the zinc or iron ions occupy the points of a face-centered cubic lattice, with the two lattices displaced from each other such that the zinc and iron are tetrahedrally coordinated to the sulfur ions, and vice versa.
“Sphalerite” enters the record as zinc-iron sulfide mineral. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sphalerite, zinc-iron and sulfide can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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