Best viewed using Adobe Flash Player (8 or higher).
Download hereGENERAL DESCRIPTION
Cinnabar (mercury sulphide) is a species known since Antiquity. Like arsenic, mercury contained in cinnabar is potentially harmful for health if it is oxidized and swallowed.
The crystals are rhomboedric, tabular or prismatic form; they are rare, cinnabar is generally occuring as compact masses. Its beautiful cochineal red colour blackens under the effect of the oxidation by air. It is then possible to observe on the cinnabar surface, small native mercury droplets. Cinnabar is formed mainly in the hydrothermal veins of low temperature, where it can be associated, among others, with realgar (As4S4), pyrite (FeS2) and calcite (CaCO3).
The deposits are very few to produce well crystallized cinnabar: mostly China and Spain (Almaden) where it is associated to native mercury. In France, small cinnabar deposits are reported at the Les Chalanches mines and Allemont (Isère, Alps), in Cap Garonne (Var), close to Nantes and Mayenne in the West, the barite quarry of Pessens (Aveyron), in Clermont l’Hérault and near Tuchan (Aude) in Languedoc-Roussillon, near St-Lô (Manche) and finally in Giromagny (Territoire de Belfort) and La Bruche (Haut-Rhin) in the East.
The type is not definable because this species was already known before the conditions of deposit of the types were defined.
Did you know? Cinnabar was used as red pigment in the Chinese potteries and inks. In Occident, it was used as a drug and, until 1850, it was one of the medecine used against syphilis and skin problems. Its use was forbidden during the 19th century because of its toxicity. It is currently the main mercury ore.
HISTORY : Name derived from Latin "cinnabaris" from Persian "zinjifrah" meaning "dragon blood", in reference to ist red color
Species first described in -315 by Theophraste (372-287), Greek philosopher and naturalist
Type-locality: undefined because species already known from the Ancients
ANCIENT NAME : Mercure sulfuré, mine de mercure en cinabre
CHEMICAL FORMULA : HgS
CRYSTAL SYSTEM : Rhomboedric
COLOR : Red
DIAPHANIETY : Transparent
LUSTER : Adamantine
STREAK : Brownish red
MORPHOLOGIE : Rhomboedric crystals, massive
HARDNESS : 2,0-2,5
CHEMICAL CLASS: 8,2
DENSITY : II - Sulfures, sulfosels
GROUP : Cinnabar
STRUNZ CLASS BEFORE 2001 : 2/C.18-10
STRUNZ CLASS AFTER 2001 : 2.CD.25
