Halite
Mineral NaCl
Also called Salt
Take care.
- Damaged by water: Keep it dry: don't wash it, and keep it out of damp places.
- Breaks down in damp air: Keep it dry and in steady humidity; some crumble or rot as they take on moisture.
About it
Salty-tasting cubes, often with stepped hopper faces, that dissolve in water. Pink hoppers come from Searles Lake, California, and blue crystals from German and Polish salt mines; keep it dry.
- Type
- Mineral
- Group
- Halide, halite group
- Formula
- NaCl
- Hardness (Mohs)
- 2–2.5
- Specific gravity
- 2.17
- Streak
- white
- Lustre
- vitreous (glassy)
- Crystal system
- Isometric (cubic)
- Colours
- colourless, white, pink, orange, blue, purple
- Transparency
- transparent, translucent
- Cleavage and fracture
- perfect cubic
- Under UV light
- some glows red or orange under shortwave UV
Typical values: real specimens vary. For more, see mindat.org.