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Formula: Cu2+3Zn6Te6+2O12(OH)6.(Ag,Pb,☐)Cl
Tellurite
Crystal System: Trigonal
Specific gravity: 6.05 measured, 4.82 calculated
Hardness: 3
Streak: Pale blue, almost white
Colour: Blue
Environments
Quetzalcoatlite is found as a secondary mineral in some oxidised telluride-bearing ore bodies
(Webmin).
Localities
At the type locality, the Bambollita Mine, moctezuma, Moctezuma Municipality, Sonora, Mexico,
quetzalcoatlite was found only in the very richest pieces of ore. Usually these are spectacular masses or
nuggets of hessite with minor galena
and bornite. The gangue is
rhyolite so severely altered that only a variety of
clays (kaolinite, dickite and
others) and quartz remain. The
primary ore grains replace this altered rock or are
embedded in thin stringers of coarse baryte. Incipient oxidation has
occurred in these samples. Galena is thinly rimmed with
cerussite, brilliant azurite
crystals film bornite, and pitted surfaces on
hessite grains are implanted with
chlorargyrite and stubby prisms of
teineite. Quetzalcoatlite occurs in such material as minute
crystalline crusts or sprays of needles in thin fractures. Often these fractures are filled with
dickite, which is stained a pea green colour with an amorphous
copper-tellurium compound. This
compound corrodes and partly replaces quetzalcoatlite
(MM 39.261-263).
At the Old Guard mine, Tombstone, Tombstone Mining District, Cochise County, Arizona, USA, quetzalcoatlite
is associated with khinite,
dugganite, chlorargyrite
and gold
(HOM).
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