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LITHOEN

Mineral

Pyrite

Iron disulfide, the commonest sulfide mineral. Its formation requires reducing conditions and its breakdown on exposure to oxygen and water drives acid generation.

Brassy metallic cubic pyrite crystals on a pale mineral matrix.
Pyrite from Dreislar, Germany. Iron disulfide is the commonest sulfide mineral; its formation requires reducing conditions, and its breakdown on exposure to oxygen and water is what drives acid generation from sulfide-bearing rock. Locality: Dreislar, Germany.

Hannes Grobe, CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC-BY-SA-4.0 · source · Derivative: Downscaled to 1000 px wide by the Wikimedia thumbnail service; no cropping, no colour or content alteration.

Classification

formula
FeS2
ima status
grandfathered
crystal system
cubic

How this record is known

3
Settled consensus
Cited as the accepted position of the discipline.

3 of 3 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.

What Lithoen records

Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.

EstablishedCubic

The Handbook of Mineralogy records the crystal data of pyrite as cubic.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Mineral Data Publishing 2001 Institutional reference

Established5.018 g/cm3

The Handbook of Mineralogy gives a measured density for pyrite of 5.018 g/cm3.

  • precision note: A reference value from a compiled data sheet, and for several species the midpoint or single figure of a published range.
  • method: Compiled from published measurements; Lithoen holds no measurement of its own.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Mineral Data Publishing 2001 Institutional reference

EstablishedFeS2

Pyrite is an accepted mineral species in the IMA List of Minerals, with the CNMNC-approved formula FeS2 and IMA status “grandfathered”.

  • definition basis: IMA List of Minerals, September 2026 update, which is the authority on mineral species status.
  • precision note: An approved formula is an idealised composition; natural crystals of most species depart from it through substitution.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification, International Mineralogical Association 2026 Primary authority

In the knowledge graph

Figures

Cut slab of dense, metallic, brassy to steel-grey massive sulfide with a fine granular texture.
Massive sulfide from a Paleoproterozoic volcanogenic deposit. The source names the Flambeau mine in Wisconsin as the locality; Lithoen holds a Flambeau record but has not published it, so this image is not offered as evidence about that deposit. Sulfide of this kind accumulated at the sea floor where hot fluid met cold seawater; that it can be photographed at all means it escaped the rapid oxidation that removes most seafloor sulfide, and the mechanism that protected it is a separate question from the one that formed it. Locality: Flambeau Mine, northwestern Wisconsin, United States, as stated by the source.

James St. John, CC BY 2.0 · CC-BY-2.0 · source · Derivative: Downscaled to 1200 px wide by the Wikimedia thumbnail service; no cropping, no colour or content alteration.

Record last updated 2026-09-06. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.