Nepheline Mineral

Hey dear Hive Community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my contribution and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! Today I decided to bring a new mineral a little closer and hope you can expand your knowledge.

Here you can see a specimen of the mineral Nepheline which can also be counted to the mineral class of silicates and germanates and the formation can be traced back due to magmatic origin. It was first found at the beginning of the 19th century in Italy on Mount Vesuvius and it was then described by the French mineralogist René-Just Haüy (1743–1822) and the name is derived from the Greek of the word nephele for cloud and this refers to the fact that it was discovered at that time that in contact with nitric acid which is created with the help of the oxidation of ammonia on the mineral turbidities arise which are somewhat reminiscent of clouds and with contact of hydrochloric acid similar observations were made. From an industrial point of view, it is relatively important and versatile and it has often been used by the ceramic industry as a substitute for feldspar and it is also interesting due to the content of aluminum as ore and in addition it is also important for the production of soda, fertilizers and it is also used for the production of glass. The crystals of Nepheline usually have a darker appearance as well as an appearance that looks a little greasy or oily on the surface and the shape of the crystals can be very diverse and due to the interesting shapes, it is also of great interest to collectors. In itself, it is a rather common mineral that is often found together with other minerals such as quartz, leucite or apatite and the most important places of discovery include Mexico, Russia, USA, Italy and England.

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Thank you very much for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about minerals! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!