Steel-grey metallic veinlets of the extremely rare Fe-Ni silicide suessite from the type locality in the North Haig meteorite, Australia (North Haig Meteorite, Sleeper Camp, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australia), in a completley analyzed specimen by SEM/EDS. Ex Vandenbroucke Museum collection from Waregem, Belgium. — Photo: David Hospital · CC BY-SA 4.0
Suessite
Iron silicide — a rare mineral found in the North Haig ureilite meteorite, named for geochemist Hans Suess.
Intro adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Suessite is an IMA-recognized mineral species in the native element class, with the chemical formula Fe₃Si.
It crystallizes in the cubic crystal system (space group Im3m).
Key properties: specific gravity 7.08.
IMA symbol Sss, IMA status: approved, named in 1979.
Found in a highly reduced brecciated meteorite (North Haig meteorite); in amygdaloidal basaltic porphyrite (Chatkal Range, Russia).
It is found associated with Olivine, pigeonite, kamacite, troilite, carbonaceous material (North Haig meteorite); khamrabaevite (Chatkal Range, Russia).
The mineral was named to honor Dr. Hans E. Suess (1909–1993), Austrian-American geochemist, Professor of Chemistry, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.