Alstonite

Twinning in alstonite is ubiquitous, forming pseudohexagonal groups. The mineral has one imperfect cleavage and it breaks with an uneven fracture. It is not very hard, with a Mohs hardness of just 4 to ​4 ⁄2, a little harder than fluorite, and its specific gravity is 3.70. It is soluble in dilute HCl and it is not radioactive. The trimorphs alstonite, paralstonite, and barytocalcite all have similar physical properties.

Simple crystals of alstonite are not known. The crystals are invariably complex twins formed by repeated twinning, and have the form of doubly terminated pseudo-hexagonal pyramids, like those of witherite but more acute. The faces are horizontally striated perpendicular to the pseudohexagonal c crystal axis and they are divided vertically by a medial, slightly reentrant twinning line parallel to the pseudohexagonal c axis. Crystals are colourless to snow white, yellow-gray, pale gray, pale cream, pink, or pale rose-red, but the colour may fade on exposure to light. They are transparent to translucent with a white streak and vitreous lustre. The examination in polarized light of a transverse section shows that each compound crystal is built up of six differently oriented individuals arranged in twelve segments.

Alstonite is triclinic, but appears pseudo-orthorhombic because of twinning. The space group is P1 or P1. Alstonite appears to have a superstructure based on paralstonite without long range order of the metal cations or the CO3 groups. The structure of paralstonite is similar to that of other double carbonates.