Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A mineral, ZnCO3, sometimes used as a source of zinc.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Native anhydrous zinc carbonate, an important ore of zinc: one of the group of rhombohedral carbonates.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Min.) Native zinc carbonate. It generally occurs in stalactitic, reniform, or botryoidal shapes, of a white to gray, green, or brown color. See Note under
calamine .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun mineralogy A
mineral form of zinc carbonate,Zn C O 3, mined as anore ofzinc or as anornamental stone .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"smithsonite" for the carbonate, and these meanings of the terms are now adopted by Dana and many other mineralogists.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various
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Sphalerite or blende (zinc sulfide), the original zinc ore, smithsonite, hydrozincite, willemite.
13. Glaze oxides 1993
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England (following Brooke and Miller, 1852) these designations have been reversed, calamine being used for the carbonate and smithsonite for the silicate.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various
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The minerals of the oxide zone are smithsonite (zinc carbonate) and calamine (hydrous zinc silicate), which yield minor amounts of zinc and are especially productive at Leadville, Colorado.
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Zinc occurs in nature most commonly as sulphide (blende); it also occurs as carbonate (calamine) and silicate (smithsonite).
A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. Cornelius Beringer 1886
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Mineralization consists of zinc carbonate (smithsonite), silver-bearing galena (lead sulphide) and lesser malachite and barite.
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The mineralization, consisting mainly of smithsonite (zinc carbonate), iron oxides and galena varied in true width from 2 to 5 metres.
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The mineralization, consisting mainly of smithsonite (zinc carbonate), iron oxides and galena varied in true width from 2 to 5 metres.
treeseed commented on the word smithsonite
Smithsonite, or zinc spar, is zinc carbonate ZnCO3, a mineral ore of zinc. Historically, smithsonite was identified with hemimorphite before it was realised that they were two distinct minerals. The two minerals are very similar in appearance and the term calamine has been used for both, leading to some confusion. The distinct mineral Smithsonite was first described in 1832 and named for British chemist and mineralogist, James Smithson (1754-1829), whose estate financed the Smithsonian Institution.
Smithsonite is a variably colored trigonal mineral which only rarely is found in well formed crystals. The typical habit is as earthy botryoidal masses. It has a Mohs hardness of 4.5 and a specific gravity of 4.4 to 4.5.
_Wikipedia
February 14, 2008