Bornite Mineral

Hey dear community, I hope you are all well and you had a great start to the new week! In this post, I would like to bring a mineral a little closer and hope you are able to expand your knowledge a little.

Here you can see a specimen of the mineral Bornite, which is a more common mineral and is considered an important ore for the extraction of copper. The content of copper is often over 60% and in addition it still contains traces of iron and was first found in the Czech Republic and mentioned in writing during the 18th century, however, it should take some time until it got its current name and it was named in 1845 by the Austrian mineralogist Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger (1795 - 1871) who had decided to name it in honor of the naturalist Ignatius von Born (1742 - 1791), who had been shaped by mining since his childhood and has promoted numerous new innovations when it comes to mining. Among other things, he invented a technology that makes it possible to separate silver or gold and he was considered a diverse personality who had also dealt with other topics and is considered the writer of different writings and he was also known to have been involved in numerous associations. It is assumed that it already appeared as a copper mineral before the naming to honor von Born in old writings and probably it was also used as ore by ancient cultures thousands of years ago. The formation of bornite can be traced back to volcanic or hydrothermal activities and has some interesting properties and through contact with air the mineral changes the color and if you want to keep the original color, collectors should definitely remind to keep it in closed containers. Due to pseudomorphosis, it can also lead to the fact that bornite converts into malachite and it is probably also interesting that it can even obtain magnetic properties by high temperatures between 300 - 400 degrees. Nowadays, a thousand locations are known and, in addition to the most important use as ore, is also known in the circles of collectors and traces of bornite have even been found on the moon.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about minerals! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.