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Cinnabar (Cinnabarite) is a name applied to red mercury sulfide, or native vermilion, the common ore of mercury. Cinnabar presents remarkable resemblance to quartz in its symmetry and optical characteristics. Like quartz, it exhibits circular polarization, and Alfred Des Cloizeaux showed that it possessed fifteen times the rotatory power of quartz. It has higher refractive power than any other known mineral. Cinnabar may be associated with elemental (liquid) mercury and thus be dangerous to handle. Body temperature is often enough to vaporize the mercury out of the rock and this gas can be absorbed through the skin.
HgS - Mercury Sulfide
Class:
Red to brownish-red
Crimson
Adamantine to metallic, also dull
Opaque
8.2
2 - 2.5
Perfect
Conchoidal to uneven
Rhombohedral, thick tabular and prismatic crystals, massive
Non-fluorescent
Frequency:
Abundant
Origin:
Low-tempurature hydro-thermal mineral, associated with realgar, mercury, pyrite, marcasite and other minerals
Occurence:
Hunan and Guizhou provinces, China; Nikitovka, Ukraine; Khaidarkan, Kyrgyzstan; Monte Amiata and Rippa near Seravezza, Italy.
Application:
The most important mercury ore, a pigment and as a minerals specimen.

 
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