Nickeline
Species
Uncommon · NiAs
Nickel arsenide, pale copper red tarnishing grey: the kupfernickel of German miners, who took it for a copper ore that yielded no copper and blamed the sprite Nickel. From it Axel Cronstedt obtained a white metal in 1751 and named it nickel. A minor part of nickel-copper ores and of the silver and cobalt veins of the Erzgebirge and of Cobalt, Ontario.
Identity
- Formula
- NiAs
- Chemical class
- Sulfide
- Also known as
- Niccolite, Kupfernickel, Copper nickel
- Ore of
- Nickel
Crystallography
- Crystal system
- Hexagonal
- Habits
- Massive, Granular, Dendritic
- Fracture
- Conchoidal
Physical properties
- Mohs hardness
- 5
- Density
- 7.78 g/cm³
- Luster
- Metallic
- Colors
- light red, pink, gray
- Streak
- pale brownish black
- Transparency
- Opaque
Geology
- Origins
- Hydrothermal, Igneous
- Host rocks
- Granite, Volcanic rock, Ultramafic rock (peridotite, serpentinite)
- Associated minerals
- Skutterudite, Bismuth, Bismuthinite, Silver, Cobaltite, Pyrrhotite, Pentlandite, Chalcopyrite, Barite
- Found in
- Hydrothermal vein (lode)
- Geography
- Germany (Schneeberg, Saxony; St. Andreasberg; Mansfeld), Czech Republic (Jáchymov), Austria (Schladming), France (Chalanches), Canada (Cobalt and Sudbury, Ontario), Morocco (Bou Azzer)
Classification
- Rarity
- Uncommon
- Gem quality
- No
Sources
- M. Pasero and others, IMA Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification, The New IMA List of Minerals, updated September 2026. International Mineralogical Association (CNMNC), 2026.
- J. W. Anthony, R. A. Bideaux, K. W. Bladh, M. C. Nichols, Nickeline. Mineral Data Publishing, Handbook of Mineralogy, 2001.
- Nickeline. Wikipedia.
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