Today's Mineral: FeS2
Fools Gold!
(its April Fools day - get it? huh?)
I'm gonna milk this April Fools day thing for all its worth and yank the carpet out from under you because today's mineral is actually Marcasite!
Marcasite is a polymorph of pyrite (AKA fools gold). Marcasite has the same chemical composition as pyrite but a different crystalline structure.
Pyrite is isometric (cube shaped).
Marcasite is orthorhombic (cereal box shaped)
Yay for mineralogy! Special kudos to anyone who leaves a comment identifying other polymorphs.
(I stole the pyrite image from Wikipedia, the marcasite photo from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls website and the animated gifs from www.minerals.net)
(its April Fools day - get it? huh?)
I'm gonna milk this April Fools day thing for all its worth and yank the carpet out from under you because today's mineral is actually Marcasite!
Marcasite is a polymorph of pyrite (AKA fools gold). Marcasite has the same chemical composition as pyrite but a different crystalline structure.
Pyrite is isometric (cube shaped).
Marcasite is orthorhombic (cereal box shaped)
Yay for mineralogy! Special kudos to anyone who leaves a comment identifying other polymorphs.
(I stole the pyrite image from Wikipedia, the marcasite photo from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls website and the animated gifs from www.minerals.net)
Labels: fools day, fools gold, gold, isometric, marcasite, mineralogy, orthorhombic, polymorph, pyrite, rocks, yay
posted by Zeolite at 1:00 PM
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