About This Site
	The proper cleaning, development and conservation of mineral specimens is highly dependent on knowledge of select physical and chemical properties for the mineral species present. Much data on these properties exists, but even with modern internet search tools, can be difficult to locate. It is the purpose of this web site to gather data relevant to this work into one easily navigated source, mostly from published literature but from the author's own unpublished work as well. Data which is common knowledge (e.g., calcite is attacked by HCl) is usually not referenced. Words such as 'soluble,' 'affected' or 'attacked' are often used interchangeably across the literature used to prepare this data base. For example, a mineral might be attacked by a certain reagent without being partially or completely dissolved. Only species for which data is available have been included at this site. Discredited species names or names referring to mineral species mixtures, found mostly in the older literature, are not included. Data is organized by mineral species name and not by chemical, obviating the need to search through multiple tables present in other, previous works on this subject. In addition to listing of properties for individual mineral species a set of general rules for chemical sensitivity of minerals is presented. These rules are drawn from both the data presented at this site as well as published mineral literature. Unlike some of the larger works containing this information, literature references are given for each individual mineral species. Conflicting data is pointed out. Chemicals which for the typical amateur present significant acquisition difficulties, safety hazards in use and difficulty in proper disposal (HF, aqua regia, cyanides, etc.) are not included here. Specific mineral entries are not intended to provide details of cleaning, development or conservation procedures. For these, consult Mineral Specimen Cleaning and Development for the Amateur (download pdf here). Conflicting literature data on chemical stability is often due to differences in reagent concentration as well as temperature, time, origin of the specimen as well as opinions on what constitutes 'fast' versus 'slow' or 'slightly affected' versus 'not affected,' etc. When unsure, always test a treatment with lower quality specimens first (preferably from the same locality) before committing precious material to possibly irreversible damage. This website is a work in progress, with new data added as it becomes available. Please report any omissions or errors to steve@dragon-minerals.com.