Asbolane Locality: Lipovskoe Mine, Rezh District, Ekaterinburgskaya (Sverdlovskaya) Oblast', Middle Urals, Urals Region, Russia Black grains of Asbolane. Field of view 8 mm. Specimen and photo Leon Hupperichs. — Photo: Leon Hupperichs · CC BY-SA 3.0
Asbolane
A manganese oxy-hydroxide with cobalt and nickel — the mineral long known to miners as cobalt ochre.
Intro adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Asbolane is an IMA-recognized mineral species in the oxides & hydroxide class, with the chemical formula Mn⁴⁺(O,OH)₂·(Co,Ni,Mg,Ca)ₓ(OH)₂ₓ·nH₂O.
It crystallizes in the hexagonal crystal system.
IMA symbol Asb, grandfathered status — known before the IMA’s founding, named in 1841.
Found as a weathering product in silicic rocks (Russia); in siliceous schists (Kara-Chagyra, Uzbekistan); widespread in residual soils above ultramafic rocks (New Caledonia).
It is found associated with Goethite.
Its name comes from the Greek for to soil like soot.