ALUM MINERALS, ELEGANT TROGANS, AND SHAVING CUTS

An Elegant Trogan.  Photo Public Domain and courtesy of Dominic Sherony.

My previous posting was on the mineral halotrichite, a hydrated iron sulfate with long wispy crystals or tuffs as a common habit.  I also, several years ago, purchased a mineral box containing halotrichite crystals.  I remember the specimen cost a buck and was covered with a thick layer of dust so I brought it home but dare not blow away too much dust as the crystals were mostly loose and on the surface of an unknown matrix.  But in this time of self-quarantine I have been taking a second peek at many of the mineral specimens stored in the drawers.  So, out popped this specimen labeled: Halotrichite, Karshaw (sic. Harshaw) District, Chief Mine, Coll. 1971, FitsHue Collection. I knew about the Harshaw Mining District mainly due to the Japan Law quartz crystals collected from Washington Camp mining area.  In fact, the entire Patagonia and neighboring Santa Rita Mountains are checked full of old mines and prospecting holes.  I also have camped at Patagonia Lake State Park with two memories of the area: 1) I spotted my first and only specimen of the Elegant Trogan [Trogon elegans]; and 2) in asking directions to the Washington Camp I was warned by locals not to drive there alone, and to travel armed.  It appeared that drug smugglers were in the area.  So, I switched from minerals to bird watching and especially was interested in the Trogan since the Audubon Guide to North American Birds noted “Since the 1890s the possibility of seeing a trogon has lured birdwatchers to southern Arizona. With its brilliant metallic colors and odd croaking call, the Elegant Trogon brings an exotic touch to the wooded canyons and streamside sycamores where it lives. The observer who finds one may get to watch it at leisure: rather sluggish, the trogon may sit upright on one perch for several minutes.”  Trogans are tropical birds but a few migrate north to breed (April-September) in the sycamore canyons of extreme southern Arizona, especially in the Patagonia, Huachuca (Ramsey Canyon) and Santa Rita Mountains (Madera Canyon).  They are sort of a Holy Grail to dedicated bird watchers.  I was honored to be a chosen one and stand under a tree and observe and chat with the fellow for 10 minutes until I quietly departed.  It certainly was the highlight of my meager birding career.


OK, back to the halotrichite, which really doesn’t look like halotrichite--at least to me.  According to MinDat halotrichite is not known from the Chief Mine although Anthony and others (1993) noted its presence. The polymetallic (but mostly copper) Chief Mine is located as one of a group of 12 claims crowded together in Alum Canyon.  It was a small mine and evidently has not been active in the last 100 years or so; no production records were located.  Its next-door neighbor, the World’s Fair Mine, also was in Alum Canyon and was a much larger producer (copper) and MinDat lists 56 valid minerals known from the Mine, including an isolated nodular specimen of halotrichite.  However, there are other photos in MinDat of what is described as Alum Group minerals, a generic name for hydrated aluminum alkalic metal sulfate [XAl(SO₄)₂-12H₂O]. A “dead ringer” photo in MinDat was a “white fibrous alum group mineral collected by Rolf Luetcke at a small tunnel off Alum Gulch”


Most of the mining in the Harshaw District is from copper minerals disseminated in a Tertiary rhyolite and/or lodes/veins of ore along fault fissures and breccia zones in limestones.  What is really interesting is a statement by Schrader and others (1915): “In Alum Canyon, on the southwest, the weathered surface of the rock and the alluvial gravels derived from it are coated with efflorescence and incrustations of alum, some of whose constituents seem to be derived from the pyritic content of the rock through oxidation.” This description would seem to indicate the alum formed post-mining.  So, I am calling this specimen of white fibers from Alum Gulch (maybe, maybe not the Chief Mine) an Alum Group Mineral.

Photos (~4000 Kelvin) of fragile fibers of an Alum Group mineral from Alum Gulch, Harshaw District, Arizona.  Width FOV ~

And, what are Alum Group Minerals?  The generic chemical formula for Alum Group Minerals is XAl(SO₄)₂-12H₂O where X is usually an alkali metal cation with an oxidation state of 1+, usually sodium or potassium but ammonia, titanium or even cesium are available.  Those cations bond with an aluminum cation with an oxidation state of 3+, or occasionally bond with 3+ chromium, cobalt, iron or manganese.  Together those cations then combine with the sulfate radical, SO₄, and lots of water H₂O. 

Photomicrographs (LED ~5600 Kelvin): Fibers of Alum Group mineral from Alum Gulch.  Width FOV ~ 

Alum minerals most common in nature are referred to as Alum-K and Alum-Na. It is really tough to distinguish between these two minerals without some electronic gizmos---at least for me.  Both are soft at Mohs 2-3, form small, vitreous crystals, or fibrous mats, or are massive/granular.  Some crystals are clear and transparent while others are white and opaque.  Both are members of the Isometric Crystal System; however, MinDat noted that crystals are octahedral if they precipitate from pure water but are cubic if they precipitate from an alkaline solution. It appears most descriptions of mineral producing localities use the term Alum Group Minerals although most of these minerals are probably Alum-K.   


There are a couple of different alum minerals that have better mineral names: 1) lanmuchangite, known from two localities, where titanium with an oxidation state of 1+ substitutes for sodium or potassium; and 2) tschermigite with ammonia, NH₄, acting as the monovalent cation.

Natural alum minerals are usually formed as a precipitate around volcanic fumaroles/vents, burning coal beds, or where iron sulfide and potassium/sodium minerals can oxidize.


 A large number of “alum group” minerals are now produced synthetically and used in industry, and alum may be produced from rocks/minerals by adding sulfuric acid to leucite, alunite, bauxite ore, or kaolinite. We know refined alum for its place in the spice rack (alum-K) where my mother used it to crisp home-canned dill pickles. My father had his own use for alum for when he cut himself shaving, he dabbed the cut with a “styptic pencil” (alum-NH₄).   Commercially, alum is used as a flocculating agent in water-purification plants, to size paper, as a binder in dyes, and as an ingredient in baking powder (among the many uses).


Parents of children needing a science project know about growing large, colored (food coloring), octahedral crystals of alum when seed crystals are tied to a thread and suspended in a saturated solution.  They are quite beautiful!

I found USGS Bulletin 582 by Schrader and others (1915) to make fascinating reading, all 372 pages. One of the best sections is his quote about some of the items in a “prospector’s kit” that were used to test for the presence of alunite, an alum mineral:

Boil the powdered sample with water or with hydrochloric acid for several minutes. After allowing the powder to settle pour off the liquid and repeat the operation to insure the removal of all soluble sulphates. Dry the powder and heat to a dull red. Again boil in water, and after settling pour off some of the clear liquid. To this add a small fragment or a solution of barium chloride. If the mineral is alunite a heavy white precipitate will form. To be sure that the water used in this test does not contain sulphates in solution it should be tested with barium chloride, and if it gives a marked precipitate it can not be used. For this test all that is required that is not included in a miner's or prospector's outfit is a little barium chloride, which can be carried in a small bottle or cartridge.


Do modern rockhounds, or even prospectors, have their own chemical lab in their “prospector’s kit”?

REFERENCES CITED

Anthony, J.W., Williams, S.A., Bideaux, R.A., Grant, R.W., 1995, Mineralogy of Arizona, Third Edition: University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona.


Schrader, F.C., J.M. Hill, 1915, Mineral deposits of the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, United States Geological Survey: USGS Bulletin 582.

FOR THOSE INQUIRING MINDS

A styptic pencil is an antihemorrhagic agent — simply put, it helps constrict blood vessels so they’ll stop bleeding. It’s most commonly used to treat small wounds and cuts on the face and body. The main ingredient in a styptic pencil is anhydrous (the NH₄ monovalent cation) aluminum sulfate; an agent that restricts blood flow, allowing a cut to close quickly.


And who are the inquiring minds?  Ask Albert Einstein: "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." Children are such curious creatures, as are adults that retain an enquiring mind. They explore, question, and wonder, and by doing so, learn. When they are curious about something new, they want to explore it. And while exploring they discover. Through discovery, they learn. This positive cycle of learning is fueled by curiosity and the pleasure that comes from discovery and mastery.

CHASING THE BLUES: MINERALS AND MUSIC ALONG WITH ELWOOD AND JAKE

Elwood: What sort of music do you usually have here?

Claire: Oh we got both kinds, We got country, and western.

In this time of the Covid-19 pandemic and self isolation my mind wanders, as readers can tell from several of my postings, and my comments about the Blues Brothers! But at least it seems to work, and I and my family remain well.  I read a new book about every three days, play with the minerals, devour the newspaper, write letters to the editor (few are published), write/read several hours a day, watch a little PBS, exercise, and listen to the oldies music channel. Jake: That Night Train's a mean wine.  Not a strenuous day but not too exciting either; however, we have food and shelter and wellness and for this I am happy.  Actually I am learning much, not only about minerals, but about the world in general and wait for scientists to conquer the coronovirus.  Today, for some strange reason, my mind wandered over to the color blue and this posting is what came up!

Blue

Oh, so lonesome for you

Why can’t you be blue over me

Blue

Bill Mack but a big hit by LeAnn Rimes

Well it's one for the money, well it's two for the show

Well it's three to get ready, now go, cat go

But don't you step on my blue suede shoes

Well you can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes

Carl Perkins or Elvis Pressley

Devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress,

Devil with the blue dress on

Mitch Ryder

Blues stay away from me

Uh-uh-uh, blues why don't you let me be

I don't know why you keep a-hauntin' me. and I guess that's why

Delmore Brothers

Got the blues, got the blues

Got the blues, got the St. Louis blues

Louis Prima

OK, what is your favorite color?  For me it is blue.  As John Lennon once sang, “The sun is up, the sky is blue” or Judy Garland’s “Somewhere over the rainbow. Skies are blue.” Thinking about blue: 1) there are more songs with blue is the lyrics than any other color; 2) blue is the only color to have a genre of music named after it, The Blues; 3) if one of our 50 states primarily votes for the Democrat presidential candidate, it is a “blue state” 4) and so it goes.

A poster, source unknown, advertising the Delmore Brothers.

What about your favorite Blues genre or blue in the lyrics song?  Well, as an ole rock and roller Carl Perkins and Mitch Ryder are tough to beat.  But my all-time favorite is the Delmore Brothers, “Blues stay away from me.”  The music is very haunting (probably because of the tenor four string guitar and the harmonica {Wayne Raney} and brings back memories of my youth when Saturday night dances were scattered across the rural areas of Kansas. Those dances usually presented a “big band” sound, or “hillbilly” music; rock and roll generally was confined to school dances.   Yea, I know very few readers have heard a recording by the Delmore Brothers!  But consider they were stars of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930s and wrote more than 1000 songs. Perhaps Bob Dylan summed it up best: “The Delmore Brothers, God I really loved them! I think they’ve influenced every harmony I’ve tried to sing.”  So, there you know some of my strange secrets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUk9UDoVyKk

Maybe you have a favorite "blue" movie?  Who could forget The Blues Brothers--It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.   So, what about your favorite blue mineral?  I presume a large segment of the population would immediately state azurite, the copper carbonate. Others might spout turquoise or zoisite (tanzanite), opal, aquamarine, or numerous others.  I have espoused my views on blue minerals with numerous Blog postings and today have a couple of new, blue, copper arsenates: guanacoite and arhbarite.  You aren’t familiar with them? Neither was I until I found them in a dusty drawer of a small rock and mineral store and started reading.

Arhbarite, a hydrated copper magnesium arsenate [Cu₂Mg(AsO₄)(OH)₃], 
gets its “strange” name from the Type Locality in Morocco, the Arhbar (orAghbar) Mine.  It usually has a dark blue color, a vitreous to sub-vitreous luster, a blue streak, and often forms as botryoidal cluster of radially grown crystals.  However, at times the crystals are so tiny that the mineral appears massive. Arhbarite forms in the oxidized zone of polymetallic ore deposits due to percolating hydrothermal fluids and is usually associated with other copper arsenates such as conichalcite and guanacoite.  Arhbarite is a rare mineral only found in two localities, the Type and in Guanaco in Chile.

In fact, the “strange” name for the second mineral, guanacoite, comes from its Type Locality in the El Guanaco Mine (Atacama Desert, Chile).  The mine produces gold (primary commodity), silver, and copper (chalcocite, bornite, enargite, and covellite) from Eocene rhyolite.  It is both a subsurface and surface mine. In addition, the Mine is a source for numerous and colorful blue and green copper minerals, including copper arsenates.

Dark blue massive arhbarite vug (top) with light blue guanacoite  prismatic and bladed crystals (bottom).  Length (vertical in photo) of both minerals ~3 mm.

 

Closeup of above photomicrograph.

Dark blue arhbarite surrounded by prismatic crystals of guanacoite.  Maximum width of blue mass ~1 mm..

Guanacoite is similar to arhbarite in that it is a hydrated copper magnesium arsenate except it has additional water [Cu₂Mg₃(AsO₄)₂(OH)₄-4H₂O]. It has a pale blue to blue color, a white to light blue streak but most important for identification, it usually occurs as prismatic, acicular to bladed, translucent crystals.  Guanacoite is often found as tiny blades lining, or associated with, vugs of arhbarite.  Again, it is a rare mineral only known from the Type Locality, Morocco, and Spain.

RIP John Lewis: Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.

GRAND CANYON MINING: ORPHAN MINE & HALOTRICHITE

Writing a blog posing is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.       Apologies to Dan Marquois
 

The November 19, 2019, posting described minerals, especially philipsbornite and osarizawaite, collected from the Grandview Mine located on Horseshoe Mesa within Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP).  The Mine had a long history of producing copper, and attracting visitors, until purchased and annexed into the Park in 1940.  Specimens continued to appear from the Mine (collected illegally) until “bat gates” closed the entrance in 2009.

I have now acquired a second specimen, halotrichite (originally in the collection of David Shannon, noted Arizona rockhound), collected from a mine near Grand Canyon Village in the Park—the Orphan (Lost Orphan; Orphan Lode) Mine.  I am indebted to George Munford of Northern Arizona University for the information in the paragraph below.  See George’s complete story at intermountainhistories.org.

 

Hogan built the Hummingbird Trail down to the mine entrance--not for me.  Photo Public Domain courtesy of GCNP.

The Mine was originally staked as a copper prospect by Danial Hogan (maybe with Henry Ward as a partner?) in 1893 and then Hogan upped the ante by filing a patented claim with Charles Babbitt in 1906.  The Mine was never a large copper producer and continued to struggle in the early 1900s.  This struggle was compound in 1919 when the Mine was incorporated into the new National Park.  By the late 1930s Hogan saw a new opportunity for his land and invested in building the Kachina Lodge for tourists. But more troubles hit Hogan as World War II essentially stopped the flow of visitors to the Park.  He ended up holding onto the claim until finally selling it in 1946, without ever hitting the big bonanza.  The new owners (several of them) continued struggling until rich uranium ore was discovered in 1951. “Big Mining companies” then moved in with money, purchased the claim, started mining, and greatly expanded the business during the “cold war” and uranium boom. Western Gold and Uranium, Inc. (the owners) built a tramway from the south canyon rim down 1800 feet where the Mine entered the side of the canyon wall.  Ore was transported up to the rim and then hauled to a processing plant in Tuba City, AZ. On May 28, 1962, President John Kennedy signed into law, Public Law 87-457, which permitted Western Equities, Inc. to mine uranium ore in Grand Canyon National Park, adjacent to the Orphan claim, in exchange for title to the claim in 25 years (1987) . The law specified that all mining would be underground and that the tram would be dismantled by 1964. The Federal Government would receive a royalty ranging from 5 to 10 percent on the ore produced (Chenoweth, 1986).  The tram was dismantled, and a 1500 foot shaft was drilled straight down from the rim and an elevator was installed.

 

Headframe of the Orphan Mine on rim of Canyon.  Photo Public Domain and courtesy of GCNP.

The tramway ran from the rim to the mine, 1800 feet of cable.  Book may be ordered from Grandcanyonorphan.com

For those of us in Colorado it is interesting to note that in 1967 the Orphan claim and related properties were sold to the Cotter Corporation of Roswell, New Mexico, and Canon City, Colorado. During 1967, the Cotter Corporation enlarged its mill at Canon City to process 400 tons per day in an alkaline leaching circuit and 100 tons per day in an acid circuit. A flotation cell was added to remove iron and copper sulfide minerals from the ore prior to alkaline leaching. The first ore was loaded for Canon City on rail cars at an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company's siding in Grand Canyon National Park on September 27, 1967. Since Cotter's AEC contract had expired on February 28, 1965, all uranium produced after that date was sold on the private market to electrical utilities (Albrethsen and others, 1982).

By 1969 the mine had produced nearly 500,000, tons of ore that yielded about 4.2 million pounds of uranium oxide. By then Mine owners were going bankrupt due to rising production and transportation costs, and federal regulations. The National Park Service finally acquired the abandoned mine and surrounding acres in 1987.

As with many mines in the West, bankrupt owners left U.S. taxpayers a cleanup bill.  The Orphan Mine was declared a Superfund Site due to contamination by the uranium and we shelled out 15 million bucks to remediate the site.  Even today uranium mining companies want to mine near the Park and a wide variety of groups and citizens continue to fight this proposition.  In 2012, the Secretary of the Interior issued a 20-year temporary ban on exploration for new uranium mines (currently 831 active mining claims) on one million acres of public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon National Park.   Rep. Raúl Grijalva (R-AZ) introduced the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act to ban new uranium mines around Grand Canyon National Park forever. The bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives on October 30, 2019.  On December 19, 2019, Sen. Kyrsten (D-AZ) introduced a companion bill, S-3127, in the U.S. Senate; it is awaiting action.

 

Mining the breccia pipe.  Sketch courtesy of Chenoweth, 1986.

Early reports on the Orphan Mine by Max G. Kofford, chief mine geologist for Golden Crown and Western Gold and Uranium, attributed its origin to a cryptovolcanic structure or diatreme. However, as with the Grandview Mine previously described, the minerals at the Orphan Mine are concentrated in breccia zones situated alongside structural flexing features.  The ore bodies are a pipe-like structures entirely hosted in the upper Redwall Limestone and are associated with the Breccia Pipe Uranium District described by Wenrich and others (1992, 2018).  They noted  “the northern Arizona metallic district can be thought of as a paleo-karst terrain, pock-marked with sink holes, where in this case most “holes” represent a collapse feature that has bottomed out over 3000 ft (850 m) below the surface in the underlying Mississippian Redwall Limestone. These breccia pipes are vertical pipes that formed when the Paleozoic layers of sandstone, shale and limestone collapsed downward into underlying caverns.”  The base-metal ores (copper and silver) may be related to, or similar to, Mississippi Valley Type deposits where emplacement of ores suggest low temperatures (as opposed to hydrothermal emplacement).  Perhaps even more interesting in today’s geopolitical world is that Rare Earth Elements (REEs), and especially Heavy Rare Earth Elements (HREEs), are significantly enriched in the uraninite (UO₂) found in many breccia pipes.  “Mixing of oxidizing groundwaters from overlying sandstones with reducing brines that had entered the pipes due to dewatering of the Mississippian limestone created the uranium deposits” (Weinrich and others, 2018).  I wonder if REEs are also present at the Orphan?

Halotrichite crystals/fibers on matrix.  Width FOV ~9 mm.  I remain uncertain about the golden/yellow grains and the black grains; they may be some of the uranium minerals.

So, the lonely mineral I have from the Orphan is halotrichite, a hydrated iron aluminum sulfate [FeAl₂(SO₄)₄-22H₂O]. The mineral is interesting in that it usually appears as acicular or hair-like fibers that may form tuffs, matted crust-like aggregates, or efflorescence.  The colors are usually pastels-white, colorless yellowish, greenish and crystals are quite soft at ~1.5 (Mohs).  They have sort of a silky luster and are water soluble. Halotrichite may precipitate around hot springs and volcanic fumaroles or form as efflorescence in weathering sulfide deposits and oxidizing pyritic coals.

REFERENCES CITED

Albrethsen, Holger, Jr. and F. A. McGinley, 1982, Summary history of domestic procurement under U.S. Atomic Energy Commission contracts, final report: U.S. Department of Energy, Open File Report GJBX-220(82).

Chenoweth, W.L.,1986, The Orphan Lode mine, Grand Canyon, Arizona, a case history of a mineralized collapse-breccia pipe: USGS Open File Report 86-510.

Weinrich, K. J., G.H. Billingsley, and B.S. van Gosen, 1992, The potential of breccia pipes in Mohawk Canyon area, Hualapai Indian Reservation, Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1683-D.

Weinrich, K.J., P. Lach, and M. Cuney, 2018, Rare-Earth elements in uraninite-Breccia Pipe Uranium District Northern Arizona in Delventhal, E. (ed), Minerals from the metallic ore deposits of the American Southwest symposium: Friends of Mineralogy-Colorado Chapter.

A LITTLE TIDBIT

In the late 1950s, the mining company believed the uranium lode extended beyond their claim into federal property.  In what appears to be some muscle, the company proposed building an 18 story, 800 room hotel overhanging the rim. This grand hotel would spill “down the side of the precipitous cliff like a concrete waterfall” ending at a swimming pool and sun deck below.  The mining company thought that the public would much better like a small uranium mine in their Park rather than a giant hotel.  Put some pressure on the Park Service!!  The compromise was the 1962 Kennedy Law with the hotel taken off the drawing board.  Photo above courtesy of GCNP. 

Not all holes, or games, are created equal.   George Will

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: CARMINITE AND ARSENIOSIDERITE

There is not much info that I could locate about mining at Benjamin Hill in Sonora, Mexico.  Evidently Wm. Panczner noted the locality in his 1986 Minerals of Mexico; however, I could not locate a copy. I do have a copy of the 2011 edition of Minerals of Mexico distributed by MineraliA; but, no luck here either.  MinDat simply listed the presence of copper as a mineral commodity with the occurrence of the arsenates arseniosiderite, beudantite, carminite, sewardite, and the zinc (with minor iron) sulfide, sphalerite.

A few years ago, at a dusty small rock/mineral shop in Arizona, I nabbed a perky box containing carminite [PbFe₂(AsO₄)₂(OH)₂ ], one of those nifty minerals with a metal cation or two plus the arsenate anion with a hydroxyl stuck on the end.  Most of these arsenates are quite colorful and I have described many in this Blog.  Carminite is an oxidation product of arsenopyrite [FeAsS] that is so common in sulfide ore deposits.  The lead was derived from the oxidation of sphalerite, a zinc-iron sulfide.

Carminite gets its name from the carmine- to terra-cotta red color, resulting I presume, from the weathering of iron. Crystals have a vitreous luster, are translucent and soft (~3,5 Mohs), brittle, and with a mostly red streak. Large crystals are lath-like, flattened, and elongated, although some crystals are acicular tuffs.  Then there are the crystals in my specimen:  really, really, small and somewhat indistinguishable with the scale I can produce; however, some are definite laths. There have been concerns that sewardite, the calcium analogue (replaces lead) of carminite, might be mistaken for carminite—or vice versa! MinDat noted “both sewardite and carminite seem to occur at the Benjamin Hill locality. A sample sold as "sewardite" at the 2007 Munich show turned out to be an intermediate, but most probably Pb-dominant solid-solution member (U. Kolitsch, unpubl. data).”  Carminite and sewardite would be difficult for me to visibly distinguish however, I am going with the more common carminite although both could be present on the same specimen.

Photomicrographs of small (less than .5 mm) crystals/grains of red carminite and gold-yellow arseniosiderite.  The large carminite lath in the lower photo is ~.5 mm.  I presume the quartz is the clear to white material.

In the last Posting I was fond of using idioms in the verbiage and blamed the usage on “boredom” in my self-quarantine.  One international reader sent an email stating that he/she did not quite understand idioms.  OK, sorry about that mistake for English idioms are often difficult for a non-native speaker to understand.

Theidioms.com explain that an idiom is a phrase, saying or a group of words that has a metaphorical (not literal) meaning, which has become accepted in common usage. An idiom's symbolic sense is quite different from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made. There are a large number of Idioms and they are used very commonly in all languages. There are estimated to be at least 25,000 idiomatic expressions in the English language [and I commonly use them in everyday language.]  So, let me try again.

The Arsenate minerals, those with the metal cation(s) plus the AsO₄ anion, often are found with one another.  If your specimen has one arsenate mineral present, there are usually additional arsenates hanging around.  So, carminite is often found with arseniosiderite and I would state that birds of a feather often flock together meaning that since both are similar arsenates they might occur together in your specimen.

This proverb has been in use since at least the mid-16th century. In 1545 William Turner used a version of it in his papist satire The Rescuing of Romish Fox:

Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together [credit: phrases.org.uk].

Now for the English speakers: Es geht um die Wurst. Translation: It's about the sausage.  Would you understand that German idiom?  Well, it means it’s now or never!

As noted, the arsenate arseniosiderite [Ca₂Fe₃(AsO₄)₃O₂-3H₂O] is a common associate of carminite.  Most specimens that I have seen are gold to yellow to yellowish-brown to reddish-brown although black and brown crystals have been report.  I assume the various colors are associated with the amount and type of iron oxide present. Good crystals are rare and granular masses are common (as in my specimen) although flattened fibers and radial aggregates are common.  The mineral is opaque, harder than carminite (~4.5 Mohs), has a greasy/silky luster, and a yellow streak.  As with carminite, arseniosiderite results from the oxidation of other arsenic-bearing minerals such as arsenopyrite and perhaps scorodite.

Sich auf die Socken machen. I will even translate: To make the socks.

Well that German idiom means to make tracks out of here!