WGNHS
Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey

Calaverite

Calaverite with pen for scale. From the mineral collection of Brigham Young University Department of Geology, Provo, Utah, Mineral Specimens 187. Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey Denver Library Photographic Collection. (Photo by Andrew Silver.)

Formula: AuTe2 Monoclinic

Description:

Calaverite with pen for scale. From the mineral collection of Brigham Young University Department of Geology, Provo, Utah, Mineral Specimens 185. Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey Denver Library Photographic Collection. (Photo by Andrew Silver.)

Calaverite is a rare mineral generally restricted to hydrothermal veins with other gold minerals, sulfides and quartz.

MARATHON COUNTY: Found rarely as tiny brassy lath-shaped crystals with quartz in pegmatites of the Wausau pluton. These are exposed in the “rotten granite” quarries such as those south of Rib Mountain in Sec. 19 and 20 T.28N. R.7E (Falster, 1987).

TAYLOR COUNTY: Found as small grains intergrown with pyrite, chalcopyrite, petzite and krennerite in hypogene ore in the Bend deposit northeast of Gilman in the NW Sec. 2 T.32N. R.2W (DeMatties and Rowell, 1991).