Cinnabar
Mineral HgS
Also called Vermilion and Cinnabarite
Take care.
- Contains mercury: Wash your hands after handling it, and never heat it: the fumes are poisonous.
About it
Bright red, very heavy, with a scarlet streak; the main ore of mercury. Twinned crystals from Hunan and Guizhou, China, are prized, and Almadén, Spain, was mined for over 2,000 years.
- Type
- Mineral
- Group
- Sulfide
- Formula
- HgS
- Hardness (Mohs)
- 2–2.5
- Specific gravity
- 8–8.2
- Streak
- scarlet red
- Lustre
- adamantine (diamond-like), dull
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Colours
- scarlet red, brownish red, grey
- Transparency
- transparent, translucent, opaque
- Cleavage and fracture
- perfect prismatic; uneven fracture
Typical values: real specimens vary. For more, see mindat.org.