Anatase has a very widespread occurrence at MSH. One of the most striking occurrences is made up of very thin anatase plates impaled on fine aegirine needles.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
- Color is predominantly black, less commonly brown and
rarely dark blue. - Luster is adamantine to metallic.
- Diaphaneity: The black crystals are opaque while the brown
and the blue are translucent. - Crystal System is tetragonal; I41/amd.
- Crystal Habits include the tetragonal dipyramid, equant and
the tabular habit with dominant pinacoid. - Cleavage {001} and {011} are perfect.
- Fracture is subconchoidal.
- Hardness is 5.5 – 6
- Specific Gravity is approximately 3.9 g/cm3
- Streak is white.
- Associated Minerals include aegirine, albite, amphibole group,
analcime, bastnäsite, brookite, calcite, catapleiite, chlorite group,
donnayite, fluorapatite, gmelinite, natrolite, pyrite, quartz, rutile
and siderite. - Distinguishing Features the combination of crystal habit, color and
luster is distinctive. - Origin: Named in 1801 for the Greek for extension, in allusion to the
greater length of the common pyramidal faces compared to those of
other tetragonal minerals.
| Dana class # | 4.4.4.1 – Oxides; simple oxides |
| Strunz class # | IV/D.14-10 – Oxides; oxides with metal : oxygen = 1:2 (MO2 and related compounds); anatase – downeyite series |