Cerussite
Mineral PbCO3
Also called White lead ore
Take care.
- Contains lead: Wash your hands after handling it, keep it away from children, and don't make dust.
- Fragile: Handle it gently and pack it well; it breaks or crumbles easily.
About it
Heavy, colourless to white crystals with a diamond-like shine, often twinned into six-rayed stars or lattice-like plates. Forms as galena weathers; Tsumeb, Namibia, and Touissit, Morocco, are famous sources.
- Type
- Mineral
- Group
- Carbonate, aragonite group
- Formula
- PbCO3
- Hardness (Mohs)
- 3–3.5
- Specific gravity
- 6.53–6.57
- Streak
- white
- Lustre
- adamantine (diamond-like), vitreous (glassy), resinous
- Crystal system
- Orthorhombic
- Colours
- colourless, white, grey, blue-grey, black
- Transparency
- transparent, translucent
- Cleavage and fracture
- distinct prismatic; conchoidal fracture, very brittle
Typical values: real specimens vary. For more, see mindat.org.