Rocksday

Crocoite

A lead chromate forming tangled, vivid orange-red prisms.

Crocoite specimen
Photo: JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

How to identify crocoite

  • Long, slender, bright orange prisms.
  • Fragile and heavy.
  • Orange-yellow streak.

Often confused with

Where it's found

  • Dundas, Tasmania
  • Berezovsk, Ural Mountains, Russia

Uses

Collector specimens.

Rock tumbling

Not suitable for tumbling. Contains lead and chromium.

Did you know?

The element chromium was discovered in 1797 by analyzing crocoite from Siberia.

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