CINNABAR


SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION: Cinnabar is Mercury sulfide. The chemistry is HgS. It is bright red, purplish red to brownish red. The streak is scarlet to brownish red. The hardness is between 2 and 2-1/2.

ENVIRONMENT: Cinnabar is formed at low temperature, usually near hot springs or where there has been volcanic activity. It also forms in epithermal veins, associated with opal, chalcedony and dolomite.

OCCURRENCE: Almaden, Ciudad Real, Spain, is a famous locality for cinnabar. In North America important cinnabar deposits occur in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas. In California fine crystals of cinnabar have come from the Almaden Mine in Santa Clara Co. and the New Idria Mine in San Benito Co. Beautiful crystals occur in calcite at the Cahill Mine, Humboldt Co., Nevada.

NAME: The name is said to have come from India.

WARNING*WARNING*WARNING

Cinnabar is extremely POISONOUS! Do not use it for healing or magical purposes.

LEGEND and LORE: NONE NOTED. POISONOUS!

MAGICAL PROPERTIES: NOT WORTH IT. POISONOUS!

HEALING: DO NOT USE! POISONOUS!

NOTES: Cinnabar is the principal ore of mercury. Native mercury, a liquid, is rare and usually occurs with cinnabar as heavy, tin-white metallic drops.

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1. Scientific, Environment, Occurrence and Name are from (or paraphrased from) "The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals".

2. Personal Experience is from MY personal experience, journals and notebooks, by Tandika Star.