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The Rock Professor has provided you with a mineral
information card. Print on stock paper, and cut out to
enhance your rock and mineral products.
To print: with your cursor, highlight the entire card below,
right click and select print, then click on "selection"
and print.
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THE ROCK PROFESSOR
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Photo by Roger Weller,
Cochise College
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| HALITE |
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Halite is the mineral form of sodium chloride, NaCl, commonly known as rock salt. It is easily distinguished by its taste. Halite is found in many current evaporative deposits such as near Salt Lake City, Utah and Searles Lake California in the U.S., where it crystallizes out of evaporating brine lakes. The mineral is typically colorless to yellow, but may also be light blue, dark blue, and pink depending on the amount and type of impurities.The color in pink halite is due to the organism Halo bacterium that lives in the concentrated brine.
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Chemistry: NaCl, sodium chloride ♦ Class: Halides ♦ Color: colorless, white, blue, gray, yellow, red ♦ Luster: vitreous ♦ Cleavage: perfect in three directions forming cubes ♦ Fracture: conchoidal ♦ Crystal System: isometric ♦ Transparency: transparent to translucent ♦ Moh's hardness: 2.5 ♦ Other Characteristics: Salty taste ♦ Localities: Searles Lake, California and Utah in the U.S., Germany, and Mulhouse, France, worldwide in sedimentary basins.
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