Home > Type Localities II – August 5 > MS1629 Perovskite
Perovskite - Sold
- Achmatovsk mine
- Zlatoust
- Chelyabinsk Oblast
- Russia
- 2.4 by 1.7 by 1.5 cm – Thumbnail specimen (fits into a 2.5 cm cube)
Perovskite is nominally simply calcium titanium oxide, but natural samples are rarely pure. Iron typically occurs in the mineral, and electronic charge transfer between titanium and iron atoms leads to a black color for perovskite. Rose (1839) named the mineral after Count Lev Alekseevich Perovskii (1792-1856), mineralogist from St. Petersburg.
This is a crude complex crystal, seemingly forming a cube, but truly it is a complexly twinned group of orthorhombic individuals. Minor green clinochlore is present. The crystal is somewhat rough, with chipping on edges, showing only four of its pseudo-cubic faces; this is a reference piece. While not large for this locality, this is a very large perovskite crystal on a worldwide basis.