Henryite, a new copper-silver telluride from Bisbee, Arizona (original) (raw)
Bull. Minéral.
(1983), 106, 511-517
Henryite, a new copper-silver telluride from Bisbee, Arizona
by Alan J. CRIDDLE, Chris J. STANLEY, Jim E. CHISHOLM and Eva E. FEJER
Department of Mineralogy, British Museum (Natural History),
Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD, Great Britain.
L' henryite, nouveau tellurure de cuivre et d'argent provenant de Bisbee, Arizona.
Introduction
Henryite was found in a polished section [E.736 ; BM 1982,1] of drill-core from the Campbell orebody, Bisbee, Arizona, U.S.A. The three grains found are irregularly shaped with curved and straight margins against the hessite and petzite intergrowths which enclose them. Hessite also fills straight and curvilinear partings within henryite. The largest grain (1) is about 0.5 mm across (Figure la) ; the medium grain (2), roughly 0.8 mm long by 0.1 mm across ; and the smallest (3), a round-cornered angular grain, is about 0. 1 mm across (Figure \b). They are all anhedral. The enclosing hessite and petzite intergrowth is itself interstitial in subhedral, granular to massive, pyrite. A few minute patches of compound grains of rickardite (< 10 (im across) associated with discrete grains of sylvanite (also less than 10 fim across) are included in the two larger henryite grains.
Henryite is named to honour the memory of Dr. Norman Fordyce McKerron Henry (1909-
- late of St. John's College, Cambridge, England and of the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology (now Department of Earth Scien¬ ces), University of Cambridge. The mineral and its name have been approved (January, 1983) by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, IMA.
The name henryite (for Joseph Henry, 1797-1878) was previously used by Endlich (1874) for material from Gold Hill, Colorado. In the same year, Genth wrote that Endlich "based his new species upon a partial examination of mixtures", that "his 'henryite' is undoubtedly nothing but an altaite, with an admixture of py¬ rite", and that he could state "without hesita¬ tion that Dr. Endlich' s species have no existen¬ ce". The name subsequently appeared in the 6th and 7th editions of Dana but with Genth' s quali¬ fication (not ascribed to him) that it was for a mixture of altaite and pyrite. The use of the name henryite for the copper-silver telluride mi¬ neral described here replaces its use for Endlich' s mixture.