Germanite
Template:Short description Template:Infobox mineral Germanite is a rare copper iron germanium sulfide mineral, Cu26Fe4Ge4S32. It was first discovered in 1922, and named for its germanium content.<ref name=Mindat/> It is only a minor source of this important semiconductor element, which is mainly derived from the processing of the zinc sulfide mineral sphalerite.<ref>U.S. Geological Survey (2008), "Germanium—Statistics and Information", U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/germanium/</ref> Germanite contains gallium, zinc, molybdenum, arsenic, and vanadium as impurities.<ref name=Mindat/>
Its type locality is the Tsumeb Mine in Namibia where it occurs in a hydrothermal polymetallic ore deposit in dolomite in association with renierite, pyrite, tennantite, enargite, galena, sphalerite, digenite, bornite and chalcopyrite.<ref name=Handbook/> It has also been reported from Argentina, Armenia, Bulgaria, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire), Finland, France, Greece, Japan, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Russia and the United States.<ref name=Mindat>http://www.mindat.org/min-1681.html Mindat.org</ref>
| X-Ray Powder Diffraction<ref>Dana's New Mineralogy, 8th edition, Gaines et al., Wiley</ref> | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| d spacing | 3.05 | 2.65 | 1.87 | 1.60 | 1.32 | 1.21 | 1.08 | 1.02 |
| relative intensity | 10 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |