Photo of Hauyne in Processed & Rough Form
Hauyne is a mineral with a hardness of 6 out of 10 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness [?]. These Cubicly structured gems are made of sodium aluminum silicate, their full chemical compound being (Na,Ca)4-8Al6Si6(O,S)24(SO4Cl)1-2.
Hauyne is a blue feldspathoid rock-forming mineral, one of four members of the sodalite mineral group that is a component of lapis lazuli. The other three are lazurite, sodalite, and nosean. It is a complex mineral of sodium, calcium, aluminum silicate, and sulfate.
Hauyne forms very bright and attractive though uncommon transparent blue dodecahedral or pseudo-octahedral crystals of the cubic system. It is found more often in rounded, blue, white, and occasionally green grains. It is hard, brittle, has perfect dodecahedral cleavage, and conchoidal to uneven fracture. It is soluble in acids, leaving a silica gel, and fuses easily to a blue-green glass.
It is transparent to translucent, and has a vitreous to greasy luster. Some of this material has been reported to show an orange-red fluorescence under LWUV (long wave ultraviolet light).
Hauyne occurs in alkaline nepheline or leucite-rich igneous rocks, phonolites, and related undersaturated igneous rocks. It forms in silica-poor lavas.
Samples are found in the lavas of Vesuvius and the volcanoes of Lazio, associated with leucite and melilite in tuffs in the Alban hills and in hauynophyres at Monte Vulture (Basilicata) - all in Italy. It has also been found in volcanic bombs in the Rhineland, in lavas in Morocco, and in andesites in France.
It is also known as hauyinte, hauyne, roeblingite.
The specific gravity [?] for Hauyne is 2.4, its refractive index [?] is 1.50 (mea, and its double refraction [?] is None.
History
Hauyne was first described in 1807 from samples found in Vesuvian lavas in Monte Somma, (Italy), and was named in 1807 by Brunn-Neergard for the French crystallographer Rene Just Hauy.
Industrial Usages
Hauynite is a suitable mineral for collectors and of interest to scientists. Fine bright blue crystals come from Mendig and Mayen in the Eifel region of western Germany.
You May Also Like...
Obsidian: Obsidian is an extrusive igneous rock, a volcanic glass formed by rapid cooling. Its essential component is glass. Its accessory components are magnetite, ilmenite, oxides and other minerals, such as feldspar. It has the same composition as dacite or rhyolite, with less than 1 percent water. Its color is shiny black, with clear conchoidal (shell-like)fracture, its texture glassy with rare micr (read full)
Larimar: Larimar is a rare blue variety of pectolite found only in the Dominican Republic. Its distinctive sky-blue color comes from copper substitution in the mineral structure. Discovered in 1974, it's nicknamed "Caribbean gem" or "Dolphin stone." Used mainly in jewelry, its color can range from light sky blue to deep blue with white patterns. Mining occurs in a single mountainous region of the Dominican (read full)
Tektites: Tektites are glass specimens rich in silica that many believed were actually meteorites. But, the locations in which tektites have been found, and their chemistry, led scientists to suggest that they may not in fact have come from outside planet Earth. Another conjecture is that tektites are formed from rocks that melted after being hit by a meteorite. Tektites actually have a composition not unl (read full)
Gypsum: Gypsum is the most common sulphate mineral. It is usually the first evaporite mineral to be precipitated form water due to its poor solubility. Varieties include Selenite (or "spectacle stone), which is colorless and transparent; Satin Spar, the fibrous, translucent form with silky luster, which when cut cabochon shows pearly chatoyant effects; Alabaster, used for ornaments, which is firm, fine-gr (read full)
Fire Agate: Fire Agate is a term applied to much of the variety of chalcedony that occurs as botryoidal, consisting of crystals of minute platy inclusion of an iron mineral goethite or limonite minerals over the layers of chalcedony, producing a vivid rainbow containing every color in the spectrum, an iridescent, fire-like appearance, with careful polishing away of the brown outside layers. When polished, it (read full)
