page_title: Tennantite
hierarchical_section_title: Tennantite
caption_attribution_description: These mineral images are free to use how you wish.
context_page_description: Tennantite is a copper arsenic sulfosalt mineral with an ideal formula Cu₁₂As₄S₁₃. Due to variable substitution of the copper by iron and zinc the formula is Cu₆[Cu₄(Fe, Zn)₂]As₄S₁₃. It is gray-black, steel-gray, iron-gray or black in color. A closely related mineral, tetrahedrite has antimony substituting for arsenic and the two form a solid solution series. The two have very similar properties and is often difficult to distinguish between tennantite and tetrahedrite. Iron, zinc, and silver substitute up to about 15% for the copper site.
  The mineral was first described for an occurrence in Cornwall, England in 1819 and named after the English chemist Smithson Tennant.
  It is found in hydrothermal veins and contact metamorphic deposits in association with other Cu–Pb–Zn–Ag sulfides and sulfosalts, pyrite, calcite, dolomite, siderite, barite, fluorite and quartz.
  The arsenic component of tennantite causes the metal smelted from the ore to be harder than that of pure copper, because it is a copper-arsenic alloy.
context_section_description: Tennantite is a copper arsenic sulfosalt mineral with an ideal formula Cu₁₂As₄S₁₃. Due to variable substitution of the copper by iron and zinc  the formula is Cu₆[Cu₄(Fe,Zn)₂]As₄S₁₃. It is gray-black, steel-gray, iron-gray or black in color. A closely related mineral, tetrahedrite (Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃) has antimony substituting for arsenic and the two form a solid solution series. The two have very similar properties and is often difficult to distinguish between tennantite and tetrahedrite. Iron, zinc, and silver substitute up to about 15% for the copper site.
  The mineral was first described for an occurrence in Cornwall, England in 1819 and named after the English chemist Smithson Tennant (1761-1815).
  It is found in hydrothermal veins and contact metamorphic deposits in association with other Cu–Pb–Zn–Ag sulfides and sulfosalts, pyrite, calcite, dolomite, siderite, barite, fluorite and quartz.
  The arsenic component of tennantite causes the metal smelted from the ore to be harder than that of pure copper, because it is a copper-arsenic alloy. In the later 20th century it was found that arsenical coppers had been more widely used in antiquity than had been previously realised, and it has been proposed that discoveries made by smelting ores like tennantite were significant steps in the progress towards the Bronze Age.
caption: Tennantite from Ireland
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