Hübnerite

Hübnerite or hubnerite is a mineral consisting of manganese tungsten oxide (chemical formula MnWO4). It is the manganese endmember of the manganese–iron wolframite solid solution series. It forms reddish brown to black monoclinic prismatic submetallic crystals. The crystals are typically flattened and occur with fine striations. It has a high specific gravity of 7.15 and a Mohs hardness of 4.5. It is transparent to translucent with perfect cleavage. Refractive index values are nα = 2.170 - 2.200, nβ = 2.220, and nγ = 2.300 - 2.320. Typical occurrence is in association with high-temperature hydrothermal vein deposits and altered granites with greisen, granite pegmatites and in alluvial deposits. It occurs associated with cassiterite, arsenopyrite, molybdenite, tourmaline, topaz, rhodochrosite and fluorite. It was first described in 1865 for an occurrence in the Erie and Enterprise veins, Mammoth district, Nye County, Nevada, and named after the German mining engineer and metallurgist, Adolf Hübner from Freiberg, Saxony. Hübnerite is a rare mineral from the rare family wolframite. It is considered to be one of the principle ores of tungsten. It is usually identified by the dark color, one direction of perfect cleavage and high specific gravity all serving to distinguish it from other minerals. The first recorded identification of the wolframite family was back in 1948 but it was not added as a mineral until 1951. Since hübnerite comes from a family with only two end members it would be easier to explain the composition of the wolframite family since there is not enough data on hübnerite itself. The primary formula of the wolframite series is . The predominance of either iron or manganese results in formation of one of two minerals, the compositional end-members (ferberite) and (hübnerite), respectively.. Hübnerite is rarer than ferberite because of the difficulty of substituting manganese for iron. There are also other analogues, such as .