Halite is a stone practically unknown to jewelers and at the same time well known to every person. We eat it! And we are not the only ones who treat the natural mineral with appetite: wild animals travel considerable distances to enjoy the licking of halite (simply - salt) outcrops. Surprisingly, but halite is a stone, the properties of which determine the mode of existence of all living organisms.
There is nothing mysterious about this state of affairs. Life on Earth originated at a time when the waters of the world's oceans were already salty ...
Initially thickly mixed with saline solution, we now need to periodically restore the concentration of sodium chloride in the body.
Halite from the point of view of science
According to chemists, halite is an uncomplicated mineral. Simple compound of NaCl, without much variety of forms and types. Mechanical inclusions inherent in the mineral are more often found in the form of potassium, calcium and magnesium chlorides. However, sometimes the crystals can contain metal atoms and a finely dispersed suspension of organic matter. The color of crystalline halite is absent as a given - but only if there are no impurities in the salt monolith. Tiny air bubbles give the cubic halite crystals a snow-white color. A suspension of petrified clay (aluminosilicates) makes the salt gray. Ancient organics give halite a black color and a hydrogen sulfide smell.
This mineral is found in the Himalayas. For lack of another, it is eaten there. With the development of tourism, the manner of adding salt to food, smelling of rotten eggs, reached Europe ...
For the curious observer, the most interesting are solid solutions of metals in rock salt. Atomic sodium, penetrating into the crystal lattice of halite, gives it an orange tint. Iron, in a small amount getting into the crystallizing halite, makes the mineral yellow. Or red - if the concentration of the metal is high enough. Or even brown - with an excess of Fe ions.
Blue - up to violet - the mineral becomes under the influence of hard radiation. High-energy radiation knocks ions out of an already formed crystal lattice. Light, refracting in the defective areas of the array, comes out in the depleted range of the spectrum. We perceive this distortion of the flow of energy as blue light.
An interesting property of halite to lose its shape stability when heated. Hot mineral becomes plastic! It can be bent like plasticine.
Why is halite mined?
First of all - as a food element. Each person needs several kilograms of salt per year - no matter what the newfangled gurus of salt-free diets may say. For the food needs of all mankind, about seven million tons of the annual extraction of the mineral are spent.Another hundred million tons are consumed by industry. Sodium and chlorine are extracted from the mineral halite. The mineral is a raw material for the production of soda, hydrochloric acid, strong alkalis. It is curious that high-quality optics use monocrystalline halite films as additional layers on lenses.
Natural beauty of halite crystals
The most beautiful druses of salt crystals are mined in Germany and Poland (although there are many halite deposits in Eurasia, and even found in the bowels of the Russian capital). Most of interior artistically expressive crystals are used to make interior decorations. Small druses, balls, cylinders and pyramids made of salt stone amaze with the variety of soft colors and natural forms of the mineral.
Jewelry with halite inserts is a rarity. Few of the masters decide to combine eternal gold with a short-lived stone. Amateur artists, on the other hand, often create inexpensive handicrafts in which cut halite is the centerpiece.
Taking care of halite jewelry is not easy. They are extremely afraid of moisture, due to the natural softness of the material, they are subject to abrasive wear. Halite products are washed with pure gasoline or alcohol. If necessary, they can be rinsed in a cool saline solution, and then polished with velvet.
Salt treatment
Traditional medicine makes extensive use of the halite mineral in the treatment of various diseases. Inhalation of heated saline solution is indicated for combating infections of the mouth and upper respiratory tract. Hot rinses with salt relieve toothache and reduce the intensity of inflammatory processes in the pulp.Dry saline warming is effective in combating purulent skin lesions, otitis media, radicular syndrome. Saturation of the air with salt ions (halite) is of great benefit in the healing of broncho-pulmonary diseases. But if large medical institutions can afford to equip salt chambers, then salt lamps are usually used at home.
For greater attractiveness, illiterate manufacturers often paint the halite that was used to grind the lamp with synthetic dyes. The use of such a product will not harm your health at best.
Salt magic is not to the taste of evil spirits
It has long been noticed: a handful of salt thrown on the ground with a cross closes the passage for evil spirits. Old and modern fairy tales do nothing but help good heroes with salt and destroy evil heroes with crushed halite. And this despite the fact that the initial magical properties of halite are small. The mineral, simple in composition, widespread (including as an element of living organisms), of course, provides transcendental access to any biological objects. But prayer gives him good strength.
Millions of people for many tens of centuries treated halite (salt) with reverence and reverence, pinned their hopes on it, communicated with it - thereby forming the magical potential of the mineral.
When using halite in occult rituals, be prepared for the efficacy of salt if you are trying to create a good entity. And it is better not to touch the halite if your goal can be even a little bit assessed as evil. Multiplied by the power of salt, an evil wish ALWAYS turns against the spoken word of the spell ...
Salt conspiracies work great if a bag of crushed halite is used as a talisman. Salt from the father's house helps warriors in healing wounds. The traveler will not forget his relatives, even if his wanderings last for decades, but he uses a handful of salt as a "reminder". A pinch of salt sewn into baby's clothes protects from the evil eye and damage.
The main thing is to keep the salt talisman a secret. Salt is very sensitive to people, and therefore, being put on public display, it can "nourish" other people's fluids.
Rock salt - rock salt, Steinsalz (often also used to denote a rock consisting of halite), table salt - Kochsalz, sodium chloride - sodium chloride, lake salt, self-precipitating salt, ice salt, blue salt (for blue halite), partially hairy salt - Faserzalz, β-halite-β-halite (Panike, 1933), saltpar - saltspar (Murzaev, 1941) - coarse crystalline precipitates.
Crackling salt (Lebedev, Textbook of Mineralogy, 1907) - salt containing inclusions of gases, crackling when dissolved, falcon salt (Lebedev, ibid.)
- local name used in Yakutia, martinsite - martinsite, described by Karsten (1845) - halite from Stasfurt with an admixture of MgSO 4, natrikalite - natrikalite (Adam, 1869) - a mixture of halite and sylvine from Vesuvius, kallar - kallar) (Dana, 1892
- unclean salt from India, zuber - Zuber - halopelite rock, cemented with halite. Guantahayite - huantajayite - halite containing up to 11% silver, possibly a mixture (Raimondi, 1876).
The English name for the mineral Halite is Halite
The origin of the name halite
The mineral is named from the Greek "als" - salt (Glocker, 1847).
Chemical composition
Chemical theoretical composition: Na - 39.34; Cl 60.66. The composition of the very pure material corresponds to the theoretical one. As an isomorphic impurity, it contains Br (up to 0.098%). The following impurities were also noted: He, NH 3, Mn, Cu, Ga, As, J, Ba, Tl, Pb. K, Ca, SO 3 are often found due to the admixture of sylvin and gypsum.
Crystallographic characteristic
Syngonia. Cubic (3L 4 4L 3 6L 2 9PC).
Class. Hexoctahedral.
Crystal structure
In the structure, the Na and Cl atoms alternate uniformly at the sites of a simple (primitive) cubic lattice with a 0 \u003d 2.82 A; in view of the difference between Na and Cl, one must speak of two face-centered lattices (Na and Cl) with a 0 \u003d 5.64A, inserted into one another. Since the ionic radius of Сl is much larger than the radius of Na, the structure can be represented as the closest cubic packing of Cl atoms, in all octahedral voids there are Na atoms. The coordination number of both Cl and Na is 6, the coordination polyhedron is an octahedron. Perfect cleavage along the sides of the cube is due to the fact that these planes are uniformly populated with cations and anions and therefore are electrically neutral. The ionic type of bond prevails.
Main forms: Main forms: a (100), o (111).
Form of being in nature
Crystal appearance.Crystals are cubic, very rarely octahedral, sometimes reaching significant sizes. Cubic crystals of NaCl are formed from neutral solutions, octahedral - from active, acidic or alkaline solutions. Skeletal formations are very characteristic - fragile dull white hollow pyramids - "boats" floating on the brine surface with the tip down; walls
boats are usually stepped, often bear a scar or "suture" formed as a result of growth from the ribs along the walls towards each other. The boats are usually zoned as a result of the uneven arrangement of inclusions of the mother liquor, usually forming chains parallel to the sides of the cube. Often the boats are deformed and grow together with each other. Skeletal crystals with a “herringbone” structure, the so-called “salt teeth”, were also found. Their peculiar appearance is due to the uneven distribution of inclusions, which is caused by a change in the growth rate under conditions of an uneven supply of matter with a change in the evaporation rate of brine.
Known cubic crystals with funnel-concave faces. Sometimes crystals are bent or have a distorted (rhombohedral or lamellar) shape due to growth under directional pressure. There were also noted lenticular crystals grown in clay, oriented with a third-order axis perpendicular to the bedding of the clay. The crystal edges are often even and shiny, sometimes stepped or pitted. Etching patterns corresponding to the hexoctahedral class are formed even when exposed to humid air. Etching patterns on artificial crystals obtained by the action of acetic acid change their shape depending on the impurities added to the acetic acid.
Twins according to (111) were obtained only artificially from solutions containing significant amounts of MnCl 2, CaCl 2, CoCl 2. Mechanical twins are obtained by inhomogeneous compression at a temperature of 500-600 °.
Rock salt crystals are often symmetrically or asymmetrically zoned as a result of uneven distribution of inclusions or color. Cloudy areas are often located in the periphery of the crystals, closer to the tops and edges, i.e., in the directions of the most rapid crystal growth.
Aggregates... Aggregates from fine-grained to giant-grained are characteristic; separate crystals, druses are not uncommon. It also forms parallel-fibrous aggregates, drip crusts, stalactites, fluffy deposits, crusts, efflorescence.
Physical properties
Optical
Colour.Colorless and often white, gray to black, red, brown, yellow, blue (sky blue to dark indigo), violet, mauve to dark purple; occasionally green.
The gray color is often caused by clay inclusions; black and brown, which disappear when heated, - with an admixture of organic substances. Brown and yellow tones are sometimes associated with an admixture of iron compounds, in particular, the smallest needles of hematite; in the latter case, the color is usually unevenly distributed or streaky. Green coloration can be caused by Douglasite inclusions, in this case in air halite turns brown from the surface... Blue, violet and yellow colors that disappear in the light are caused by exposure to radioactive radiation. The source of β -radiation in salt deposits is K 4o and the accompanying radioactive Rb, which is confirmed by the repeatedly noted fact that halite turns blue in the vicinity of sylvinum and other potassium salts, as well as laboratory studies.
The nature and intensity of the color is determined by the amount of β-radiation received by the sample and its sensitivity to radiation. The latter depends on many reasons, the most important of which are the following:
1) the degree of deformation of the lattice and the presence of certain stresses in it;
2) the amount and nature of impurity elements in the irradiated material, for example, an increased Ca content was noted in the blue salt, and Cu in the violet; the total amount of impurities in violet and blue salts exceeds their amount in yellow; neutral Na atoms were found in blue salt from Solikamsk
3) the growth rate of colored crystals. Very often, the blue color is distributed in crystals unevenly due to the locality of irradiation or the susceptibility of crystals to it: in the form of zones parallel to the sides of the cube, irregular, isolated areas, edges, spots, winding stripes, etc. The colored areas themselves differ from each other. from another structure, distinguishable under a magnifying glass: reticular, dot-reticulated, dashed, spotted, zonal, spiral, etc. Sometimes this phenomenon is caused by the fouling of colored skeletal crystals with colorless salt.
Radiation-induced coloration disappears when exposed to light, but specimens retain increased coloration.
- Trait white to colorless
- Glass luster.
- The tide on a stale surface is greasy to greasy.
- Transparency. Transparent or translucent.
Mechanical
- Hardness 2, slightly different when scratching along the edge and along the diagonal of the cube. The average hardness on the face of the cube is less than on the face of the octahedron. The hardness of the dark blue salt is significantly higher. Microhardness 18-22 kg / mm 2. It is easiest to polish along the edges of the cube, harder on (110) and worst of all on (111). The impact figure has the form of a four-pointed star made of cracks in the plane of the rhombic dodecahedron.
- Density 2.173, often fluctuates due to the presence of inclusions, for example, salt from Kalush from 1.9732 to 2.2100; there was an increase in density with an increase in the intensity of blue color
- Cleavage according to (100) is perfect, according to (110) imperfect (the fine structure of cleavage planes was studied under an electron microscope)
- The fracture is conchoidal.
Quite fragile, but when heated, the plasticity increases significantly (in a hot saturated solution it bends easily by hand); becomes plastic also under prolonged one-sided pressure (the degree of plastic deformation of halite can be judged by the values \u200b\u200bof optical density in the region of 380-600 tpz, which depends on the degree of light scattering in the deformed areas).
Chemical properties
On the salty halite taste... Easily soluble in water (35.7 g in 100 cm3 of water at 20 °). Solubility depends little on temperature, increasing by 7 g from 0 to 100 °; significantly decreases if there is CaCl 2 or MgCl 2 in the solution; increases markedly with increasing pressure. Dissolution is accompanied by significant heat absorption. Poorly soluble in alcohol (0.065% at 18.5 °).
With AgNO 3 gives a reaction for Cl.
Other properties
Halite is hygroscopic, but does not spread in air.
Non-conductor of electricity. Dielectric constant 5.85. Diamagnetic. Triboluminescence was observed upon rubbing or squeezing NaCl crystals. Fluorescent in red when Mn is present. The luminescence of crystals activated by X-ray irradiation and heat treatment was studied. Possesses high transparency in the infrared region of the spectrum.
Melting temperature 800 °. When heated, the refractive index decreases (to 1.5246 at 425 °), the blue and violet salts become discolored.
Artificial obtaining.
Easily obtained by precipitation from aqueous solution. Water-transparent crystals can be obtained by adding FeCl 3 or strong acids and bases. It is also formed during the sublimation of sodium chloride. Methods for producing whiskers are known.
It does not mix isomorphically with KCl at ordinary temperature; isomorphic mixtures were obtained only upon rapid cooling of the melt. At temperatures above 500 °, a number of double salts are formed, the refractive indices of which change in direct proportion to the content of the components; upon cooling, they decompose into haliteand sylvin. Many physicochemical aqueous systems with NaCl have been studied.
Diagnostic signs
Similar mineral - sylvin.
It differs from other water-soluble salts in a salty (but not bitter) taste. Differences from sylvin. Recognized by the cubic shape of the crystals, perfect cube cleavage, low hardness.
Satellites.Sylvin, gypsum, anhydrite.
Mineral change
Halite readily dissolves with water, and voids remain at the site of its precipitation, sometimes retaining imprints of the finest sculpture of crystal faces. Often, such voids are filled with marl, clay, gypsum, dolomite, anhydrite, celestine, polyhalite, quartz, hematite, pyrite. During metamorphism, halite of salt deposits recrystallizes, as a result of which the transparency of its grains and the size of single crystals increase, as well as their orientation changes.
Rock salt is a mineral of sedimentary origin, consisting of sodium chloride and impurities. The rock has another name - halite, which is known in everyday life as table salt.
In the conditions of the deposit, it represents stones, which after processing and cleaning acquire the usual appearance of a white powder. The rock has an ancient origin. The ancient Greeks associated its properties with the salty taste of sea water.
Main characteristics
The chemical formula of table salt is NaCl, the compound contains 61% chlorine and 39% sodium.
In its pure form, a substance in natural conditions is very rare. In a refined form, rock salt can be transparent, opaque or white with a glassy luster. Depending on the additional impurities included in the composition, the compound can be colored in:
Rock salt rock is quite brittle, absorbs moisture well and tastes salty. The mineral dissolves quickly in water. The melting point is 800 degrees. During combustion, the flame acquires an orange-yellow tint.
Rock salt looks like a cubic crystal or stalactite with a coarse grained structure.
The formation of halite occurs during the compaction of layers that were formed in past geological periods and are large massifs.
The origin of rock salt is conventionally divided into the following types:
Mineral deposits
Rock salt is a mineral of exogenous origin, whose deposits were formed many millions of years ago in a hot climate. Mineral deposits can form when salt lakes and shallow waters dry out. Small amounts of halite can form during volcanic activity or soil salinization in arid regions as a result of human activities.
If groundwater with a high salt content is found nearby, natural soil salinization can also occur. When moisture evaporates, a thin layer of rock forms on the soil surface.
Areas with high moisture evaporation and low water inflow are characterized by mineralization of the soil layer. With high evaporation, compounds appear on the surface, which are formed in different layers of the soil. When a salt crust forms on the upper soil layer, the growth of plants and the vital activity of living organisms cease.
Currently, the deposits are located in Russia in the Urals in the Solikamsk and Sol-Iletsk deposits, in Irkutsk, Orenburg, the Arkhangelsk region, the Volga region and the Astrakhan region. In Ukraine, halite is mined in the Donetsk region and Transcarpathia. A significant amount of the mineral is mined in Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma.
Mining methods
Extraction of minerals on an industrial scale is carried out in several ways:
Due to the properties of rock salt, the use is not limited to consumption. A person cannot do without table salt. Halite is in demand in technological processes in various industries. It is widely used not only in the food industry for preserving meat, fish and vegetables, since it is a cheap preservative.
In the chemical industry, the compound is necessary for the production of hydrochloric acid, which is in demand in various sectors of the economy.
In metallurgy, the mineral is used as a coolant in quenching, as well as in the production of a number of non-ferrous metal compounds. It is part of the electrolyte.
The pharmaceutical industry uses halite for the manufacture of medicines and injection solutions.
In the tanning industry, the compound is used as a tannin for processing animal skins.
Healing properties
The sodium compound is part of the internal environment of the body, which ensures the normal activity of the circulatory system, conduction of impulses along nerve fibers.
Many peoples have a belief that if you pour salt on a cross in front of the entrance to the house, it will protect you from people with unkind thoughts. It was highly appreciated by many peoples, it is no coincidence that spilled salt became a sign of trouble or quarrel. Halite is able to strengthen good intentions and return evil ones multiplied several times.
For magicians and sorcerers, conspiracies for love and luck using table salt are considered effective. A jar of table salt can absorb other people's negative energy and protect the owner from the evil eye and damage.
Rock salt or halite is considered one of the most essential minerals for the human body. Halite is formed exclusively by sedimentary method from natural brines by crystallization. Quite often, natural salt is deposited in sea bays when water evaporates.
This amazing mineral comes in a variety of colors, ranging from white, transparent, gray to red, obtained from scattered particles of hematite, as well as a yellow or blue hue from particles of metallic sodium. In terms of transparency, halite has an amazing faint glassy luster. The most common color of crystals is colorless, blue, red.
- 1 to 3 years: 2 g salt per day
- 4-6 years: 3 g salt per day
- 7 to 10 years old: 5 grams of salt per day
- 11 years and older: 6 grams of salt per day
For the human body, a lack of salt is as harmful as an excess of this mineral. Excessive consumption of halite threatens a person with edema. The deficiency causes negative health, weakness, nausea, intense thirst, spasms of the calf muscles. Rock salt is actively involved in almost all basic life processes of the human body. The various salt-free diets that have existed recently are an experiment that is quite dangerous for human health. The main thing is not the complete absence of salt in the human diet, but a moderate amount of its use. First of all, it is necessary to use salt with caution in elderly people.
Some dietitians believe that the main enemy of the human body is water, excess fluid. Excessiveness gives rise to excessive development of bacterial flora, the presence of excess water leads to edema, negatively affects the work of blood vessels, arteries, which contributes to an increase in blood pressure. It is water, according to some doctors, that significantly delays a person's recovery from diseases, creates the preconditions for the occurrence of incurable diseases. People who consume rock salt in excess, harm their health by retention of water in their body. Such lovers of excessively salty foods suffer primarily from kidney disease.
External use of salt can be considered practically safe. Quite often, recurring headaches can be treated with a hot bandage soaked in 8% saline. Even in the treatment of oncological diseases, before starting chemotherapy, many sick people try to be treated by applying saline dressings that draw water out of the cells of the human body, while oncological cells die from dehydration.
With low blood pressure, it is absolutely not necessary to use strong coffee to normalize blood pressure; a slice of black bread sprinkled with salt will certainly help you. Rock salt is much better than any heating pad to help with severe sore throat, if you preheat it in a dry frying pan, transferring it to a cloth bag. The same dry saline heat is used to treat painful sensations of the joints of the hands and feet. Applying saline solutions directly to festering wounds promotes early healing, salt draws out pus.
Absolutely everyone knows about miracles, many seaside resorts, where almost all diseases are cured, are always popular. This mineral is used even for modern lamps, the salt evaporating under the influence of heat, effectively ionizes the air in the room. Salt has the strongest magical properties, which is why there are a large number of amulets, charms. Let salt protect and protect you!
STONE SALT, chemogenic-sedimentary (evaporite) rock (halitolite, halolite), composed mainly of halite with an admixture of anhydrite, gypsum, dolomite, ankerite, magnesite, calcite, as well as clay, sometimes bituminous material; raw materials for the food and chemical industries. Rock salt is a rock that is readily soluble in water. The content of sodium chloride in the purest varieties reaches more than 99%. Such rocks are transparent, but more often rock salt is white or colored in gray, brown and other tones. At relatively low temperatures and pressures, it becomes plastic.
Accumulations of rock salt, both independent and in combination with sodium (sulfates and carbonates), potassium-magnesium and potassium salts, are formed by lithogenesis of salt deposits formed due to the evaporation of sea (oceanic) or continental waters in an arid climate in salt-bearing basins mainly foothill troughs and platform depressions. Rock salt manifestations (beds, lenses, interlayers, nests, and phenocrysts in other sedimentary rocks) are known in all geological systems, from the Precambrian to the Neogene. The most significant halogenesis in the history of the Earth took place in the Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, Permian (maximum), Late Jurassic - Early Cretaceous, Paleogene and Neogene.
Fossil deposits of rock salt are of major industrial importance, represented by thick (meters - tens of meters) sheet-like flat deposits of significant areal distribution, interbedded with sulfate, carbonate and terrigenous rocks (Slavyanskoe, Artyomovskoe deposits, Ukraine, etc.), as well as salt domes and stocks, isometric and oval in plan, height and diameter from hundreds of meters to the first kilometers (Iletskoye field, Orenburg region, Russia; Solotvinskoye field, Ukraine). Deposits of modern salt formation are also of industrial importance, flowing in estuaries, lagoons separated from the sea, coastal lakes with sea water (Sivash lakes, Kara-Bogaz-Gol bay) or in continental lakes of basins feeding on ground groundwater (Elton lakes, Baskunchak, Russia ; Searles Lake, USA). In a dry and hot climate, a limited inflow of water, compensated by evaporation, reservoirs are salinized with the formation of brines (brine) and bottom sediments, in which seasonal (new planting), perennial (old planting) and crystalline (root) salt are distinguished.
In terms of NaCl reserves (million tons), very large (over 500), large (500-150), medium (150-50) and small (less than 50) deposits are distinguished, and in terms of NaCl content (%) - rich (more than 90) , privates (70-90) and poor (less than 70). Rock salt deposits, in which the NaCl content is over 97%, which corresponds to the conditions of table salt, are unique.
Significant reserves of rock salt are concentrated in Canada, USA, China, India and other countries. Large salt-bearing basins are also known in Russia: Priuralsky (Verkhnekamskoe, Shumkovskoe deposits), Prikaspiysky (Iletskoe, Svetloyarskoe, Strukovskoe), East Siberian (Nepa, Ziminskoe, Tyretskoe, Bratskoe), Predkavkazsky (Shedokskoe); Ukraine and Belarus - Dneprovsko-Pripyatsky (Slavyanskoe and Artyomovskoe; Starobinskoe and Davydovskoe); in Germany, Denmark, Poland - the Central European Zechstein basin. Explored reserves of rock salt (Russia and the former republics of the USSR) - 118 billion tons, of which (%) the share of Russia is 58, Belarus - 19, Ukraine and Uzbekistan - 8 each, Tajikistan - 3.
World production of rock salt exceeds 225 million tons, of which the USA accounts for 21%, China - 15%, Germany and India - 7% each, Canada - 6%, France, Great Britain and Brazil - 4% each, Russia - 3% ... Rock salt is the main source of NaCl production - the most important food and agricultural feed product, as well as feedstock for chemical and other industries.
Lit .: Mineral resources of Russia. M., 1994. Issue. 1: The most scarce types of mineral raw materials; Mineral raw materials. Mineral salts. M., 1999; Mining industry in Russia. Yearbook. M., 2006-. Issue 1-; Eremin N.I. Nonmetallic minerals. 2nd ed. M., 2007; Eremin N.I., Dergachev A.L. Economy of mineral raw materials. M., 2007.