page_title: Pyrite
section_title: Hazards
hierarchical_section_title: Pyrite / Hazards
caption_attribution_description: English: Disseminated gold, left behind after a cubic crystal of pyrite dissolved away. Note "corner" of former cube in center of rock, with small gold pieces lining the sides of the corner. Français&#160;: Or disséminée laissé la dissolution d'un cube cube cristallin de pyrite dissoute. Noter le "coin" de l'ancien cube, avec des petits fragments d'or le long des côtés de l'angle.
context_page_description: The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula FeS₂. Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral.
  Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue give it a superficial resemblance to gold, hence the well-known nickname of fool's gold. The color has also led to the nicknames brass, brazzle, and Brazil, primarily used to refer to pyrite found in coal.
  The name pyrite is derived from the Greek πυρίτης λίθος, "stone or mineral which strikes fire", in turn from πῦρ, "fire". In ancient Roman times, this name was applied to several types of stone that would create sparks when struck against steel; Pliny the Elder described one of them as being brassy, almost certainly a reference to what we now call pyrite.
  By Georgius Agricola's time, c. 1550, the term had become a generic term for all of the sulfide minerals.
  Pyrite is usually found associated with other sulfides or oxides in quartz veins, sedimentary rock, and metamorphic rock, as well as in coal beds and as a replacement mineral in fossils, but has also been identified in the sclerites of scaly-foot gastropods.
context_section_description: Iron pyrite is unstable at Earth's surface: iron pyrite exposed to atmospheric oxygen  and water decomposes into iron oxides and sulfate. This process is accelerated by the action of Acidithiobacillus bacteria which oxidize pyrite to produce ferrous iron, sulfate, and protons (H⁺
  ). These reactions occur more rapidly when pyrite is finely dispersed (framboidal crystals initially formed by sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) in argillaceous sediments or dust from mining operations).
caption: A pyrite cube (center) has dissolved away from a host rock, leaving behind trace gold
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