Arthurite, a New Copper-Iron Arsenate from Cornwall

R. J. Davis and M. H. Hey
Department of Mineralogy, British Museum (Natural History) London, S.W. 7

Summary: Thin apple-green crusts on several specimens from Hingston Down Consols mine, Calstock, Cornwall, proved to consist of a new mineral, alone or intimately mixed with pharmacosiderite (which it closely resembles), or with an unidentified mineral of the alunite-beudantite group having a 7·04, c 16·6 Å, or with both. The new mineral, for which the name arthurite is proposed, for Sir Arthur Russell and Mr. Arthur W. G. Kingsbury, who independently collected material and suggested that it might be new, gives X-ray powder photographs with their three strongest lines at 4·28, 4·81, and 6·97 Å ; the photographs could be satisfactorily indexed on a monoclinic unit-cell with a 10·09, b 9·62, c 5·55o Å (all ± 0·01 Å), β 92·2° ± 0·2° and containing [Cu2Fe4(AsO4)3(OH)7.6H2O]. Chemical analysis on 1·1 mg gave: CuO 16·8, Fe2O3 32·4, As2O5 34·3, H2O 16·5 % (reduced to 100 % after deduction of 27·4 % quartz) ; sp. gr. 3·2 (calc. 3·07). Under the microscope arthurite is pale olive-green and very finely granular; n 1·78, birefringence low to moderate.

Mineralogical Magazine; September 1964 v. 33; no. 266; p. 937-941; DOI: 10.1180/minmag.1964.033.266.01
© 1964, The Mineralogical Society
Mineralogical Society (www.minersoc.org)