Manganite

As the name suggests, manganite is an important ore of Manganese. In prehistoric times, manganite was used as a pigment by humans and as a way to start fires by Neanderthals. Some specimens make for highly-prized minerals for collectors.

Manganite occurs with other manganese oxides in deposits formed by circulating meteoric water in the weathering environment in clay deposits and laterites. It forms by low temperature hydrothermal action in veins in association with calcite, barite, and siderite. Often associated with pyrolusite, braunite, hausmannite and goethite. Manganite occurs in specimens exhibiting good crystal form at Ilfeld in the Harz Mountains of Germany, where the mineral occurs with calcite and barite in veins traversing porphyry. Crystals have also been found at Ilmenau in Thuringia, Neukirch near Sélestat in Alsace (newkirkite), Granam near Towie in Aberdeenshire, and in Upton Pyne near Exeter, UK and Negaunee, Michigan, United States, and in the Pilbara of Western Australia. Good crystals have also been found at Atikokan, Ontario and Nova Scotia, Canada. As an ore of manganese it is much less abundant than pyrolusite or psilomelane. Although described with various other names as early as 1772, the name manganite was first applied in a publication by W. Haidinger in 1827.