Mineral colour
Mineral colour
Red, blue, green, pink, purple, orange...
Minerals can be very colourful! Sometimes we can use colour to identify a mineral.
Click on each colour in the colour wheel to see a lot of different coloured minerals
https://view.genial.ly/60c72b4be86e2d0d27614b8a
Some minerals are always the same colour. Malachite and azurite are both copper minerals. Malachite is always green and azurite is always blue - in fact, the word 'azurite' comes from an old Persian word 'lazhward', meaning blue.
Malachite and azurite can be found together, but malachite is always green, azurite blue.
But many minerals are not always the same colour. Fluorite for instance can be lots of different colours. The different colours are caused by the slight imperfections or impurities a mineral may contain. To identify many minerals you must look at more than just their colour. In the pictures below you can see that fluorite can come in many different colours.
So remember, while colour is an important property of a mineral, it can be misleading - never rely on colour to identify your mineral!
