Small green crystals of the mineral lipscombite on quartz from Valmy, Humboldt County, Nevada, on display in the Phosphates display case in the Harvard Mineralogical Museum at the Harvard Museum of Natural History , gift of William N. Lipscomb, Jr. 1996. Mineral named after William N. Lipscomb, Jr. . Width 35 mm., height 35 mm., depth (not visible) 30 mm. Approximate outside dimensions of irregularly-shaped sample. inorganic — Photo: James S. Lipscomb, photographer · CC BY-SA 3.0
Lipscombite
A green-to-black iron-manganese phosphate that also forms microscopic crystals at meteorite impact sites.
Intro adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Lipscombite is an IMA-recognized mineral species in the phosphate class, with the chemical formula Fe²⁺Fe³⁺₂(PO₄)₂(OH)₂.
It crystallizes in the tetragonal crystal system (space group P4_32_12). It is a member of the Lipscombite structural group.
Key properties: specific gravity 3.66; Vitreous luster.
IMA symbol Lcb, grandfathered status — known before the IMA’s founding, named in 1962.
Found in a hydrothermally altered phosphate zone of a complex granite pegmatite (Sapucaia mine, Brazil).
It is found associated with Cyrilovite, leucophosphite, phosphosiderite, frondelite (Sapucaia mine, Brazil); heterosite, strengite, cyrilovite, leucophosphite (Hagendorf, Germany).
The mineral was named to honor William Nunn Lipscomb (1909–), mineralogist, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, who determined the crystal structure of the synthetic compound.