Name/Title
AdamiteEntry/Object ID
78.62.96Description
Chemical Composition: Zn2AsO4(OH)
Crystal System: Orthorhombic System
Description: Common Name: Adamite
Chemistry: Zn2AsO4(OH)
Group Name: Arsenates
Location: Durango, Mexico
Description: Delmar described this specimen as a piece of Adamite (Hydrous Zinc Arsenate)
from Durango,Mexico. Colors: Ochre Iron base has olive and light green and little white Adamite
crystals.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Color is typically green due to trace amounts copper and or uranium, yellow, rarely white and occasionally purple due to trace amount of cobalt.
• Luster is adamantine.
• Transparency: Crystals are transparent to translucent.
• Crystal System is orthorhombic; 2/m 2/m 2/m
• Crystal Habits include diamond shaped, wedge-like prisms sometimes modified with minor prismatic faces and terminated by a double triangle. Mostly in druses and radiating clusters that can form wheel and wheat sheaf shapes. Rarely in a perfectly smooth botryoidal habit like smithsonite, but commonly found with well formed double triangular crystal terminations that sparkle on the top of the "sub" botryoidal surface.
• Cleavage is perfect in two directions at non-right angles to each other (domal).
• Fracture is conchoidal.
• Hardness is 3.5.
• Specific Gravity is approximately 4.4 (heavy for translucent minerals)
• Streak is white to pale green.
• Other Characteristics: Strongly fluoresces green in short and long UV light.
• Associated Minerals are legrandite, limonite, smithsonite, austinite, paradamite, aragonite, calcite, mimetite, conichalcite and other oxidation zone minerals.
• Notable Occurrences include the famous mines at Mapimi, Mexico; also Greece and California and Utah, USA.
• Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, color, luster, density, fluorescences and associations.
FluorscentCollection
Delmar Smith Mineral CollectionDimensions
Width
2-1/2 inDepth
1-1/2 inLength
2 inDimension Notes
Dimension taken at widest pointsLocation
Location
Display Case
FS-9Room
Frieda Smith HallBuilding
Crater Rock MuseumCategory
Permanent