Log InRegister
Quick Links : The Mindat ManualThe Rock H. Currier Digital LibraryMindat Newsletter [Free Download]
Home PageAbout MindatThe Mindat ManualHistory of MindatCopyright StatusWho We AreContact UsAdvertise on Mindat
Donate to MindatCorporate SponsorshipSponsor a PageSponsored PagesMindat AdvertisersAdvertise on Mindat
Learning CenterWhat is a mineral?The most common minerals on earthInformation for EducatorsMindat ArticlesThe ElementsThe Rock H. Currier Digital LibraryGeologic Time
Minerals by PropertiesMinerals by ChemistryAdvanced Locality SearchRandom MineralRandom LocalitySearch by minIDLocalities Near MeSearch ArticlesSearch GlossaryMore Search Options
Search For:
Mineral Name:
Locality Name:
Keyword(s):
 
The Mindat ManualAdd a New PhotoRate PhotosLocality Edit ReportCoordinate Completion ReportAdd Glossary Item
Mining CompaniesStatisticsUsersMineral MuseumsClubs & OrganizationsMineral Shows & EventsThe Mindat DirectoryDevice SettingsThe Mineral Quiz
Photo SearchPhoto GalleriesSearch by ColorNew Photos TodayNew Photos YesterdayMembers' Photo GalleriesPast Photo of the Day GalleryPhotography

Fakes & FraudsZincite...That must have been one HUGE Smokestack in Poland!

28th Feb 2007 05:16 UTCJustin Zzyzx Expert

Hello fine people of Mindat,


I offer to you the subject of the classic "Zincite" clusters from Poland.


In the mid 70's these specimens started entering the marketplace, sold to dealers under the guise that they were from a rare mine accident, formed on the inside of a smokestack that crumbled open and revealed all of these beautiful mining by-products.


How wonderful, right, these glassy multicolored clusters that are seen at every single mineral show in the world, coming from just that one single funky smokestack accident...


This leads me to wonder...how is possible that one, or two, or even a half dozen smokestacks could produce so many specimens that over 30 years of being sold, cut, broken, placed into collections...how is it that more and more still seem to keep popping up?


Far be it from a Polish smelter accident, I believe that these Zincite specimens are lab grown or as a constantly producing by-product of the mining process.


However, when I present this theory to people they ask me for proof.


Does anyone out there have some "Facts" for me?

How about anyone out there from Poland who can provide me with some direct evidence?


Thanks!

Justin

28th Feb 2007 06:35 UTCDominik Schlaefli

You got me curious, and after a bit of googling around, I stumbled upon a website targetting the "energy" market segment. This market segment seems less discriminating about the origins of the specimens, as the sellers are hopeful to sell "One of the very best remaining Zincite clusters in the world!" (650 g) for the symbolic amount of $4444.

If you are a bit less well off, you can settle for a single crystal pendant ($69, sold ??). The kind of single crystals that usually break of the larger zincite clusters, and the dealers don't even bother picking up when leaving the show :-).

kind regards,

Dominik

28th Feb 2007 15:09 UTCMRH

Justin,

I can't find any info on these either, and not for lack of trying. Like you, I became suspicious of the story, some time ago, after seeing the preponderance of pieces which supposedly emanated from this one time incident (give me a break).


I do own an actual specimen of recrystalized zincite, collected from the slag dumps at the original smelter facility at the west end of Palmerton, Pennsylvania, which processed ore from Franklin NJ. (newer facility is at the east end of Palmerton, next to Aquashicola). The specimen is top coated with tiny, opaic orange zincite xtls, but NOTHING compared to those gemmy, georgeous "Polish?" Zincites.


I am guilty of buying one of the "Fatties" (looks more like the pyramidal models drawn by Palache in 1935 from crystalographic data observed at Buckwheat mine), in a sleeper auction (reasonable $), for use as a "crystal model" of Zincite (can't justify the cost of acquiring an actual Zincite CRYSTAL from Franklin $$$$!), but I label it only "ZINCITE (Man Made)". I too don't buy into the Myth of the Polish Smokestacks, and like you have tried to track it down with so success.


MRH

28th Feb 2007 16:17 UTCRobert Knox

Hi Justin, I also have never been able to pin down any reliable information. Years ago I decided the Smokestack must be a metaphor for what they're blowing up our *****!


Bob

28th Feb 2007 17:49 UTCJenna Mast

I believe it was supposed to be from the Olkusz mine in Sileszia, Poland. The website www.the-vug.com states that these are lab grown.


Maybe the original ones did come from a smokestack and they were so profitable they decided to re-create them.

28th Feb 2007 19:53 UTCJohn Sobolewski 🌟 Expert

I talked to a Polish dealer at the Tuscon Minerals Show several years ago about these and he said that they did come from the flues of zinc smelter chimneys because of a faulty design which has been corrected years ago. He and another dealer purchased all the material produced and had only a couple of tons left. Because they have been a hot seller, he was trying to find the original russian engineers who designed the smelter so that he could replicate the conditions to make more of the material but as of that time he had been unsuccessful in his efforts.


My personal observation is that this material is not nearly as readily availbale as it was in the past. Ten years ago large clusters of these were readily available at Tuscon but in the past few years I have only seen small miniatures and individual crystals but no large clusters.

28th Feb 2007 20:53 UTCPaul L. Boyer

The zincite clusters still appear with regularity on ebay, many with the smokestack story attached. The clusters appear in different colors as well (yellow, green, and red at least), making me marvel at the "miracle of the smokestack". Perhaps we should get the "MythBusters" of the Discovery channel working on this.

28th Feb 2007 22:58 UTCChris Wright

The smokestack was the original source. Lab grown zincite appeared after that, but was cost prohibitive. I know of at least three tons on the market.


Chris

1st Mar 2007 01:20 UTCJustin Zzyzx Expert

Hi Chris,


Who was your source and did they show you any pictures?


Justin

6th Mar 2007 07:30 UTCJustin Zzyzx Expert

Yup...must have just been one big fat smokestack...


and it produced Zincite in tons of different seperate colors...


yeah...right. That's the ticket.


Someone buy me a ticket to Poland...I've got my own camera...

6th Mar 2007 15:38 UTCMRH

Pretty much my experience with anyone who would "talk", the same "Round Robin" of someone who knows someone, quickly leading to "some guy/dealer" or Polish dealer "X" (unknown). Granted, my "seeking" was far from exhastive (was getting nowhere fast, and I've got better fish to fry).


I would have thought at least a few of the dealers might have been a bit more curious as to their origins, but alas! None expressed any real curiosity for additional "Fact-Checking".


I might understand sellers not wanting to reveal a source of material which was particularly profitable for them, but it's odd that even now with "supposedly" all the material now "out-there", no one I've spoken to can remember this "Polish" dealers name, or whomever the original source of this material was? (collective memory loss?). So, of course my doubts presist, as they should.


Perhaps this "smokestack" lay on an expansion joint between universal dimensions, which could explain how so many xtls could come from one stack?! ;)



Good luck Justin


MRH

11th Mar 2007 02:47 UTCKristi Hugs

Interesting! I just met with a vendor who had huge zincite specimens for sale. One was at least a foot by a foot, small red crystals on a matrix of some sort. He also had smaller clusters with color combinations of green, yellow, orange, etc. Also some that were so dark that they were not even semi transparent. Heavy too! I did ask him where these came from and he said that he had had them in storage for many years and due to the popularity of late, he had brought them back out. WHen pressed as to if these were lab enhanced or lab grown, he said absolutely not.


So.....how does one tell????? I know they were expensive, but after readings Justins info on The Vug...i decided to shy away from them. Any tips?

11th Mar 2007 08:56 UTCMatt K

I am not sure how the smoke stack story got started as the only source but that is not true. Yes, some of these specimens come from a zinc refinery chimney in Olkusz but the majority were made during a fire at the Tarnowskie Gory mine in the 1970s. The reference for this is Mineraly Polski, W. Heflik, L Nowak, Antykwa, Krakow, 1998, ISBN83-909173-1-9.

Matt

17th Mar 2007 22:59 UTCColin Robinson

By what strange chemistry was the zincite formed in a mine fire. there's not much that's combustible in a mine apart from the timbering and certain gases such as methane, unless it was a coal mine. I know there are coal mines in Silesia but do these also produce lead/zinc ores. Having explored lead/zinc mines in the U.K. and seen the oxidation products produced I'm at a loss to imagine how all this zincite came into being. Surely this would have required very high temperatures sustained over a long time and with an almost limitless supply of feed material. I've seen lumps of zincite 30cm across consisting of masses of individual crystals. Did they form on the mine walls, in cavities, or elsewhere? My guess is elsewhere, ie. in a laboratory.

18th Mar 2007 14:39 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

This is a refinery/smelter, not a mine. There is a fairly constant sopurce of zinc ores, smelting of the ores, and some zinc in the gases created in the smelting process (usually known as pollution).

18th Mar 2007 16:35 UTCChester S. Lemanski, Jr.

Zincite (zinc oxide) is produced when sulphide ores "burn" or oxidize. Pyrite is more prone to "burn" in a mine fire, which may have been started by the cumulative heat generated by the slower oxidation of the pyrite itself (reference the gigantic pyritic ore body fire at the United Verde Mine, Jerome, Arizona, USA). Once ignited, the pyrite can involve the less-prone sulphides, such as sphalerite to oxidize, liberating zinc oxide, which then precipitates from vapors onto cool surfaces, forming crystals. This same process can occur in the stacks of smelters.


The non-sulphide ores of zinc (mostly hemimorphite), but also willemite, franklinite from the New Jersey mines, are/were roasted to liberate zinc oxide, which is caught in "bags" above the furnace. The slag heaps at the Palmerton, Pennsylvania, smelter (processed the ores of Franklin & Ogdensburg + Friedensville, PA) often contained still burning residual charcoal and ground ore residue, resulting in pockets lined with zincite coatings and crystals in the dumps.


The list of secondary minerals formed by the United Verde fire resulted from the various oxidation products sublimating onto cooler surfaces, such as the the steel fume/smoke diverters installed to divert the fumes to allow continued mining at surface.


Interestingly, a problem at the Palmerton smelter involved the boro-silicate glass that accumulated in the stacks from the sussexite content of the North Ore Body ores of the Sterling Mine. Obviously more than a few substances can accrete in this manner, or a similar, manner.

18th Mar 2007 22:26 UTCColin Robinson

I can understand the process taking place in a smelter but I have seen numerous references to a "mine fire" as a source of these zincite specimens. That implies a singular event when all the specimens were produced. Usually the seller has held on to them for many years, thus furthering the impression that it was a one off event. My assumption is that this is just hype. I know a wholesaler who has some big lumps of the stuff which he breaks down into smaller, saleable pieces. The wastage rate is about 50 percent but such is the mark up that he is happy to do this. he maintains that the zincite was formed when a smelter chimney sprang a leak, allowing an excess of oxygen to mix with the fumes, resulting in the superb multi-coloured crystals we see. This gives rise to another query. How come the stuff is so pure? Most slag minerals and by-products are a bit of a mixture contaminated by whatever is floating about at the time.

18th Mar 2007 22:40 UTCChester S. Lemanski, Jr.

The purity doesn't bother me since the zincite formed on the Palmerton heaps in pockets is rather pure as well. The zinc oxide caught in the "bags" during the roasting process is also quite pure, thus the use of that process. Frankly, the aspect of this material that I question is the relatively super extrordinary gigantic size of the crystals!

19th Mar 2007 20:58 UTCPaul L. Boyer

Being a bit of a cynic, have these actually been tested to see if they are all (or even a majority) indeed zincite? I can imagine at least some of them being some other compound that is easier to make. If anybody knows, I would appreciate my curiousity being slaked....

22nd Mar 2007 19:42 UTCAnonymous User

$1,080 Zincite from a reputable ebay seller, crystalarium, check this out !!


http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Orange-Polish-Zincite-Crystal-Specimen-45-lbs_W0QQitemZ190094951959QQcategoryZ3226QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem


MAJOR FRAUD ! what do you think ? or reputable US sellers cant go wrong ??

22nd Mar 2007 20:07 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

I think it worth repeating here something Alan Plante has pointed out in another forum: It is our duty as a scientific hobby to educate the general public, and avoid misleading anyone. This material is NOT "zincite". Zincite is a mineral name, and artificial substances are not "minerals". It ought to be sold as "zinc oxide crystals", not zincite. If anyone needs REAL zincite, they can find it easily on the dumps at Franklin.

22nd Mar 2007 21:02 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

You know what, I'm not too fussed whether they say it was created in a smoke stack, or in a temperature-controlled special furnace or whatever. As long as they make it clear it's an industrial product and not a mineral specimen.


At that point, of course it's up to the dealer to be as honest as they can about the origin of their material - but remember - all they are doing is reporting what is told to them by the people who make it. And if that company for whatever reason wants to be secretive about their industrial processes - then that's up to them.


It's not a mineral, it's an artifact, it's out of our jurisdiction really in this case!


Jolyon

24th Mar 2007 22:31 UTCDavid Aldridge

I completely agree with Jolyon. I think the main thing is that is important for the dealer to be honest with the specimen. I find them a convenient source for chemistry experiments, as extracting Zinc Oxide from sunscreen takes quite a while, they were able to crystallize, so they are pretty pure, so unless I'm doing something analytical, I just go up to a "metaphysical" shop, buy one, and powder it. The result: Powdered Zinc Oxide, made from the exact source that it is made from by many industrial companies.

25th Mar 2007 02:02 UTCChris Wright

Justin,

Yes, I did see some photos of a smokestack with the "zincite" (this was in the 70's

in Europe). I do know that the many are from the Original "deposit". I bought about 1,000 lbs of the pieces with the largest being 35".


I inspected my lot in Vienna and also purchased superb pieces at Prague.


Later, I purchased a few of the lab grown pieces and was told that they were lab grown - these were mainly facet rough.


Could I prove that the of the smokestack were the majority, no. But it was supposedly about three tons.


Little is available except at very high prices.


The colors range was tremendous and the green were often lab grown.


Chris

25th Mar 2007 12:51 UTCJustin Zzyzx Expert

Hi Chris,


That's really interesting. I'm glad you could serve as the source of information about this! I'm going to pick your brain a bit in Dallas then! =)


Well, 3 tons...6,000 pounds. From the 70's. They are not exactly fragile, but they do break. People like to facet them, don't they? How many pounds have made it to the big garbage dump in the sky?


I would still feel confident that a large amount of material available for sale is lab grown.


There are several variables in formation and apperance in the specimens. It would be interesting to be able to find out more information about these.

26th Mar 2007 03:15 UTCChris Wright

Justin,

See me at Dallas. I will try to fill in the gaps.


Chris

1st May 2007 01:52 UTCAnonymous User

Ebay item #190094951959


Amazing that this seller made it clear on description "spectacular MINERAL"!


Anyone selling Zincite is selling stuff fraudulently, and is therefore a fraudster, isnt it ?

1st May 2007 02:11 UTCAnonymous User

Hi Maria,


Once again as before well observed and stated, but one thing you must remember my friend is that it's ok for some and not for others or so this forum will have you believe....but you are correct this is a very fraudulent act and it's being carried out by some supposedly reputable and trustworhty dealers.


Craig

1st May 2007 15:02 UTCChester S. Lemanski, Jr.

Selling this stuff as a "mineral" is misrepresentation at least, fraud at worst. It is a chemical that is artificially (or anthropogenically) crystallized, no less so than the potassium alum crystals so often sold as legitimate minerals. The difference is that zincite, which so very, very rarely is found as crystals in nature, makes these gigantic crystals a curiosity more so than with similar creations of some other synthetics.

22nd Dec 2010 09:11 UTCJaniece Senn

The mining accident zincite is distinguished from other zincite by it's melted quality. Most zincite is made up of pointed crystals where as the polish mining zincite is bubble like. I wish I had batteries for my camera and I would show you the difference. If it is pointy crystals it is not rare. If it looks melted it is very rare. Because zincite is pointed though does not mean it is worthless. As with all minerals and stones there are quality and rough examples.

22nd Dec 2010 09:58 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

"Mining accident" is not the right term. "Smelting accident" perhaps? Anyway, the crystals are the result of an industrial process, not mining. That is an important distinction for mineral collectors.

22nd Dec 2010 13:59 UTCTomasz Praszkier Manager

Polish "zincites" were growing during many years in smokestacks which were low quality and because of cracks air was entering in them. Once on some time smokestacks were cleaning to prevent completely "blockage" of them by "zincite". After cleaning "zincites" went to dumps and later were selling. "production" was hundreds of kg each year. Now smokestacks are repaired and zincites do not grow any more. There is no Polish zincites connected with mining accidents.

I hope that helps.

Tomek

22nd Dec 2010 14:21 UTCRolf Brandt

Hi all,

My daughter in law's mother is a geochemist and works for the Polish Geological Survey. When I asked her to organise me some zincites, she said she knows they are all men-made and I should not bother with them.Regards Rolf

15th May 2015 04:32 UTCreddeer

We also have met this gentleman from Poland from the Tucson rock show many years back. His name is Janusz Gradowski and we purchased a large specimen probably 5 plus years ago. I will try posting photo. We try to stop by his booth each year that we return to Tucson and he has stated that there is no longer peices as large as he had many years back when we purchased ours. I would assume that if he was creating them in a lab which he has lab grow crystal which I must say look lab grown he would continue to do so. The piece that we have is approximately foot long and extremely heavy.

16th May 2015 07:59 UTCRock Currier Expert

I was told that they were formed in a big smoke stack in a refinery at the point where there was a crack in the smoke stack that causes the crystals to form there and that periodically they had to go in and break them out to keep it functioning. Has anyone heard this approximate story or can give a more accurate description of how the crystals were formed?

17th May 2015 00:17 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

Regarding the name, I feel it's OK to give mineral names to synthetic materials as long as they are prefixed, eg synthetic diamond, synthetic quartz, synthetic zincite, etc. This won't work for metals though.

17th May 2015 09:14 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

Re formation in a mine, about 100 yrs ago the Broken Hill Ag-Pb-Zn mines in Australia had some large fires in their underground mines, largely due to abundant timbering, though its possible that abundant sulphides like pyrrhotite may have enhanced it. The fires converted the ores locally into abundant fine grained masses of minium, but despite plenty of zinc there was no zincite formed. I suspect that to from big crystals of zincite you would need to sustain a very high and constant heat for an extended time, maybe months or years?

20th May 2015 00:16 UTCPaul Stephen Cyr

I can add that zincite crystals can supposedly "easily" be precipitated with a zinc oxide vapor.

20th May 2015 02:48 UTCDoug Daniels

Well, yes...just don't be anywhere near that zinc oxide vapor.....

25th May 2015 19:23 UTCcascaillou

many companies growing crystals for laser applications are also producing synthetic zincite. However, these crystals are often grown by hydrothermal method and thus might not show the same crystal habit than the ones which were accidentally grown from smokestacks (which is linked to vapor phase or sublimation growth).

11th Jul 2016 16:23 UTCTerry Colbert

I have two very large Zincite specimens I purchased about 18 years ago. One is a beautiful red and the other is a very colorful green. The large green specimen is 8 pounds and the red is 14 pounds.


To be sure the specimens you are looking at are real you can buy an inexpensive microscope and look at any small piece of the specimen you are looking at. Set the scope to 40X to 100X you can actually see small slivers of ash in the crystalline structure.


I purchased a few small pieces off of eBay to see if they were man made and ever one of them I purchased was man made. Under the microscope you will see very symmetrical crystalline growth with is not seen in the real Zincite. Also there are no ashes in the man made Zincite, so it is very easy to tell real from fake with inexpensive equipment.

8th May 2017 03:26 UTCRebi Shanley

Hello,

I have a piece of what I think was sold to me as zincite, in the early to mid 2000s. How can I tell?

The price is very beautiful, layers of terminations and the top layer covered in an almost Druzy layer . But very heavy to hold. So much so it's a bit weird to look at the stone and understand how it can feel so heavy. Any opinions gladly received guys.

8th May 2017 04:25 UTCWayne Corwin

Rebi


Welcome to Mindat !


A photo or 2 or 3 would help much.Please make clear closeup in daylght.

8th May 2017 07:53 UTCErik Vercammen Expert

Rebi, zincite has a density around 5,4: that is the double of stones like calcite and quartz. And the pieces of manmade zincite I've seen, are very solid, so is normal to be heavy.

29th May 2017 15:08 UTCKristi Hugs

Hey Justin, I know you started this post a long while back. Have you found any more definitive information on Zincite? I have always been confused about the variety of colors.....white, lime, rootbeer, red, green, orange..............

29th May 2017 23:37 UTCDoug Daniels

Regarding the colors, it would have to do with trace elements present in the crystal (they are still crystals, even if we don't consider them minerals). White would be essentially pure zinc oxide. Reds and oranges would likely be due to manganese (as at the natural occurrence at Franklin). The greens I would guess to be due to iron. "Rootbeer", maybe a double whammee of manganese and iron.

29th May 2017 23:49 UTCKristi Hugs

Thanks Doug!!

29th May 2017 23:51 UTCKristi Hugs

01195930016015551904034.jpg
It's like a burst of autumn color! :)

2nd Jun 2017 21:33 UTCKristi Hugs

Thank you Ian, this is excellent information and will be very helpful!!

3rd Jun 2017 03:04 UTCDoug Daniels

Well, just blew my guesses out of the water. But, someone did some investigations on a "non-mineral". Nice. Thanks for the link.

28th Jun 2017 21:27 UTCSigmund Ongstad

03410930016015551903573.jpg
I bought a specimen in 2005 at “Mossemessa” from a Norwegian dealer. The label said Zinkitt (Norwegian) and claimed that it was found in USSR. No story about rare findings, strange production or fire in Poland. I naively bought it for its ‘rarity’ and extreme luster.


Three of the sides, and the top and bottom parts seem ‘unbroken’, while the fourth side is partly damaged, seemingly cut off from another piece. Its measures are 15 x 4 x 8 cm, weight 1 kg (density high, 5-6 perhaps). Needles are fragile, many of them have lost their upper part. The top of the specimen is light green, while the lower parts are lustrous green.


The reason why I have posted the pictures is connected to the word “soot” in the conclusion in the link given by Ian above, made by the research group from China. Soot has also been mentioned briefly by an other commentator (as a possible indicator of “fire” or overheating). Many needles (“crystals”) contain one or two very small ‘dots’ of soot, normally amalgamated and integrated in the surface structure. (Can not be removed by hand.)


The whole underpart is totally black. Here though, very thin layer of loose soot can partly be scraped off, but the whole sole nevertheless consists of solid, heavy matter, in average 5-8 millimeter thick and very black. The matter is a quite tight, rather plain/flat structure of ‘coated’ needles, as if they were dipped and burnt in tar or asphalt.


I claim no professional knowledge in the field. My point is just to share some pictures with you that can illustrate where soot can be found, in my specimen, and in possible, similar others.


If this is of any help in the discussion, not all of my money were waisted.

04730480015652103986475.jpg

06542050015652103994058.jpg

28th Jun 2017 21:44 UTCScott Rider

I do not see your images Sigmund. It could be my browser but I am getting "Image Error" that I haven't seen before... Anyone else seeing that error?

28th Jun 2017 22:02 UTCKristi Hugs

yes, error here too

28th Jun 2017 22:12 UTCBecky Coulson 🌟 Expert

Me too, but you can click on the "open image URL".

28th Jun 2017 22:15 UTCThomas Lühr Expert

Here the same error (new bug ?) but the pics are shown when clicking on "open image URL" inside the error message window


Becky, our messages crossed :)

28th Jun 2017 22:15 UTCRobert Rothenberg

Me too. Also on the prior post of jeff d martin.

28th Jun 2017 23:01 UTCDon Saathoff Expert

No problem here. Running Chrome. Images came up immediately. Also, I'm signed in.


Nice pics....

22nd Sep 2017 18:42 UTCFerhan Tanudjiwa

05473330016015551908596.jpg
Crystal Hexagonal Zincite SG 5.65

03682750015652104002959.jpg

22nd Sep 2017 20:37 UTCErik Vercammen Expert

Hello Ferhan, unless there has been recently a large find of natural zincite (and I'd liked to know it), this is the material written about in this thread, coming from a zinc smelter.

8th Oct 2018 20:23 UTCKristi Hugs

Question......would zincite fluoresce? A dealer here for a rock show was putting it under a blacklight to show people. Would that be an indicator of man/lab created or?

8th Oct 2018 23:05 UTCŁukasz Kruszewski Expert

There are many sources of these zincites. Some are, indeed, lab-grown. Some (minorities) formed due to PbZn mine fires. But some were formed in smelting processes and may be found in heaps.

9th Oct 2018 01:08 UTCA. M.

Kristi H., in both SW and LW UV the man-made zincite could be fluorescent in green, from Poland and Palmerton, Pennsylvania.

15th Sep 2019 15:57 UTCDominik Böhm

08661680016015551904229.jpg
Bought a few days ago this big zincite cluster. The private seller said he bought at a fair in the 80s and said it was formed in a refinery in Poland (that is what the orignal seller said to him).Was now somebody able to find something about this story, even when this thread was opened 12 Years ago?This 'mineral' ist 10Kg heavy and measures around 42cm x 25cm. I just had to buy it... It is also fluorescent.

15th Sep 2019 17:09 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

If you check earlier posts in this thread, Dominik, you‘ll see the answer... Inefficient faulty smokestack at a smelter or refinery. Hundreds of Kg of crystals had to be scraped out of the chimneys every year to prevent the chimneys getting blocked, with total yield in the tons. As Polish industry is now very much modernized, these poorly built smokestacks are gone and no more zincites are produced. So in summary these crystals are neither "lab grown" nor the product of "mine accidents", but rather a byproduct of industrial processes. We could call them "accidentally synthesized" zincite.
 
Mineral and/or Locality  
Mindat Discussions Facebook Logo Instagram Logo Discord Logo
Mindat.org is an outreach project of the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Copyright © mindat.org and the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy 1993-2024, except where stated. Most political location boundaries are © OpenStreetMap contributors. Mindat.org relies on the contributions of thousands of members and supporters. Founded in 2000 by Jolyon Ralph.
Privacy Policy - Terms & Conditions - Contact Us / DMCA issues - Report a bug/vulnerability Current server date and time: March 28, 2024 12:36:18
Go to top of page