minerals Article Spiridonovite, (Cu1-xAgx)2Te (x ≈ 0.4), a New Telluride from the Good Hope Mine, Vulcan, Colorado (U.S.A.) Marta Morana 1 and Luca Bindi 2,* 1 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e dell’Ambiente, Università di Pavia, Via A. Ferrata 7, I-27100 Pavia, Italy;
[email protected] 2 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via G. La Pira 4, I-50121 Firenze, Italy * Correspondence: luca.bindi@unifi.it; Tel.: +39-055-275-7532 Received: 7 March 2019; Accepted: 22 March 2019; Published: 24 March 2019 Abstract: Here we describe a new mineral in the Cu-Ag-Te system, spiridonovite. The specimen was discovered in a fragment from the cameronite [ideally, Cu5-x(Cu,Ag)3+xTe10] holotype material from the Good Hope mine, Vulcan, Colorado (U.S.A.). It occurs as black grains of subhedral to anhedral morphology, with a maximum size up to 65 µm, and shows black streaks. No cleavage is −2 observed and the Vickers hardness (VHN100) is 158 kg·mm . Reflectance percentages in air for Rmin and Rmax are 38.1, 38.9 (471.1 nm), 36.5, 37.3 (548.3 nm), 35.8, 36.5 (586.6 nm), 34.7, 35.4 (652.3 nm). Spiridonovite has formula (Cu1.24Ag0.75)S1.99Te1.01, ideally (Cu1-xAgx)2Te (x ≈ 0.4). The mineral is trigonal and belongs to the space group P-3c1, with the following unit-cell parameters: a = 4.630(2) Å, c = 22.551(9) Å, V = 418.7(4) Å 3, and Z = 6.