What is
Barite?
• Chemistry: BaSO4, Barium Sulfate
• Class: Sulfates
• Group: Barite
• Uses: ore of barium, in heavy muds in
oil-well drilling, to increase
brilliance in glass-making industry, as
filler for paper, cosmetics, textiles,
linoleum, rubber goods, paints.
• Specimens
Barite, barites, or heavy spar, a white,
yellow, blue, red, or colorless mineral.
It is a sulfate of barium, BaSO4, found
in nature as tabular crystals or in
granular or massive form and has a high
specific gravity. The mineral is widely
distributed throughout the world. It
often occurs in veins with lead and zinc
minerals. It is insoluble in water, and
this property is made use of in testing
for the sulfate radical. It is
practically insoluble under ordinary
conditions in all the usual chemical
reagents. Barite is used as a commercial
source of barium and many of its
compounds. Ground barite is used as
filler in the manufacture of linoleum,
oilcloth, paper and textile
manufacturing, rubber, and plastics.
Finely ground barite is used to make a thixotropic mud for sealing oil wells
during drilling. Prime white, a bleached
barite, is used as a pigment in white
paint but is not as satisfactory as
blanc fixe, a chemically precipitated
barium sulfate, or lithopone, a mixture
of barium sulfate, zinc sulfide, and
zinc oxide. Barites is a material with
environmental protecting function, it
has a lot of advantages, such as a
strong inertia, good stability, acid and
alkali proof, moderate rigidity, high
specific gravity, high whiteness, absorb
in harmful radial. So, it is widely used
in the fields of all kinds of dope,
middle and high-grade paint, engineering
plastic, medicine compounding chemical
industry, rubber, paper-making, pottery,
cosmetic etc. Barite is a common mineral
and makes very attractive specimens. It
often is an accessory mineral to other
minerals and can make a nice backdrop to
brightly colored crystals. At times
bladed or tabular crystals of Barite
form a concentric pattern of
increasingly larger crystals outward.
This has the appearance of a flower and
when colored red by iron stains, these
formations are called "Desert Roses".
Because Barite is so common, it can be
confused for other minerals. Celestite
(SrSO4) has the same structure as barite
and forms very similar crystals. The two
are indistinguishable by ordinary
methods, but a flame test can
distinguish them. By scrapping the dust
of the crystals into a gas flame the
color of the flame will confirm the
identity of the crystal. If the flame is
a pale green it is barite, but if the
flame is red it is celestite. The flame
test works because the elements barium (Ba)
and strontium (Sr) react in the flame
and produce those colors.
Barite Geology [BaSO4]
A dense sulfate mineral that can
occur in a variety of rocks, including
limestone and sandstone, and is commonly
used to add weight to drilling mud.
Barite is of significance to
petrophysicists because excess barite
can require a correction factor in some
well log measurements. |