Olivenite
Mineral Cu2(AsO4)(OH)
Also called Wood copper
Take care.
- Contains arsenic: Wash your hands after handling it, don't make dust, and never heat it.
About it
Olive-green prisms and silky fibrous tufts, once called wood copper, in oxidized copper ore with arsenic. A classic from Cornwall, and fine from Tsumeb in Namibia and the Tintic district of Utah.
- Type
- Mineral
- Group
- Arsenate, olivenite group
- Formula
- Cu2(AsO4)(OH)
- Hardness (Mohs)
- 3
- Specific gravity
- 4.3–4.5
- Streak
- olive green to brown
- Lustre
- adamantine (diamond-like), vitreous (glassy), silky
- Crystal system
- Monoclinic
- Colours
- olive green, dark green, brown, yellowish, greyish white
- Transparency
- translucent, opaque
- Cleavage and fracture
- poor; conchoidal to irregular fracture
Typical values: real specimens vary. For more, see mindat.org.