Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Calcite |
CalciteNoun1. A common mineral consisting of crystallized calcium carbonate; a major constituent of limestone. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Chemistry | Crystallised calcium carbonate. Source: European Union. (references) |
Geological | Mineral made of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Generally white, easily scratched with knife. Most seashells are made of calcite or related minerals. This is the lime of limestone. (references) |
Mining | A. A trigonal mineral, 4[CaCO3 ] ; has prolific crystal habits, rhombohedral cleavage; defines hardness 3 on the Mohs scale; effervesces readily in dilute hydrochloric acid; a common and widely distributed rock-forming, authigenic, biogenic, and vein mineral; raw material for Portland cement, agricultural lime, flux for ore reduction, dimension stone, and concrete aggregate; the major mineral in limestone, marble, chalk, spongy tufa, cave deposits, and carbonatite; a cementing mineral in many clastic sedimentary rocks; a minor mineral in some silicate igneous and metamorphic rocks. Coarsely crystalline varieties are called nailhead spar, dogtooth spar (acute scalenohedra), and Iceland spar (optical-grade crystals). Abbrev.: Cc. CF:dolomite calcspar. b. The mineral group calcite, gaspeite, magnesite, otavite, rhodochrosite,siderite, smithsonite, and sphaerocobaltite. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The mineral calcite, carbonate of calcium corresponding to the formula CaCO3, is one of the most widely distributed minerals. Its crystals are hexagonal-rhombohedral though actual calcite rhombohedrons are rare as natural crystals. However, they show a remarkable variety of habit including acute to obtuse rhombohedrons, tabular forms, prisms, or various scalenohedrons. It may be fibrous, granular, lamellar, or compact. The cleavage in three directions parallel to rhombohedron is highly perfect; fracture, conchoidal but difficult to obtain; hardness 3; specific gravity 2.7; lustre is vitreous in crystallized varieties; color is white or colorless, though shades of gray, red, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, or even black when charged with impurities.
Doubly refracting calcite. The doubling is
particularly obvious on the top bar of the letter T.
The crystal is 1.5 inches long (4cm).
Larger version
It is transparent to opaque and may occasionally show phosphorescence or fluorescence. Calcite is perhaps best known because of its power to produce strong double refraction of light such that objects viewed through a clear piece of calcite appear doubled in all of their parts - a phenomenon first described by Rasmus Bartholin. A beautifully transparent variety used for optical purposes comes from Iceland, called Iceland spar. Acute scalenohedral crystals are sometimes referred to as dogtooth spar.
Calcite represents the stable form of calcium carbonate; aragonite will go over to calcite at 470°C.
Calcite is a common constituent of sedimentary rocks, limestone in particular. It also occurs as a vein mineral, in deposits from hot springs and in caverns as stalactites and stalagmitess. Calcite is often found in the shells of marine organisms (e.g. plankton).
See also: List of minerals, lysocline.
External link: [Calcite information and images]
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Calcite."
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | ARS hydrologist Doug Boyer (right) and aide Derek Hall collect water samples from a stream in a West Virginia limestone cave. The calcite formation in the background is The Haystack in McClung's Cave. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |  | Str. Calcite. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Steamer Calcite launching party, Str. 188. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Launch of S.S. Calcite. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Calcite" by Alex Furr Commentary: "--> Calcite closup." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Georgia | There are many high quality raw materials used in the chemical industry such as: barite, diatomite, agate, bentonite, clays, andezite, talcum, and calcite. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Calcite" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.24% of the time. "Calcite" is used about 132 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.24% | 131 | 27,855 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.76% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 132 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "calcite": calcite eye ♦ calcite saturation indes. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "calcite": calcite-cemented, calcite-marcasite-sphalerite. | |
Ending with "calcite": Baryto-calcite, mg-calcite, non-calcite. | |
Containing "calcite": hydrocarbon-calcite-uraninite-polymetallic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
calcite | 88 |
calcite nicol polarization | 6 |
calcite orange | 6 |
calcite mineral | 4 |
calcite honeycomb | 4 |
calcite credit union | 4 |
blue calcite | 3 |
calcite orange sphere | 3 |
calcite in ree | 3 |
calcite crystal | 3 |
calcite filter | 3 |
green calcite | 2 |
calcite picture | 2 |
calcite filter inline | 2 |
mangano calcite | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "calcite"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Chinese | 方解石. (various references) | |
Danish | calcit (calc spar, calcareous spar, Iceland spar), kalkspat (calc spar, calcareous spar), islandsk spat (Iceland spar), dobbeltspat (Iceland spar). (various references) | |
Dutch | calciet (calc spar, calcareous spar), kalkspaat (calc spar, calcareous spar), Ijslands spaat (Iceland spar), dubbelspaat (Iceland spar). (various references) | |
Finnish | linnunsilmä (birdseye, bird's-eye, calcite eye). (various references) | |
French | calcite (calc spar, calcareous spar), calcité, spath d'Islande, spath calcaire (calc spar, calcareous spar). (various references) | |
German | Calcit (calc spar, calcareous spar), Kalzit (calc spar, calcareous spar, Iceland spar), Kalkspat (calc spar, calcareous spar), Islandspat (Iceland spar), Doppelspat (Iceland spar). (various references) | |
Greek | ισλανδικό κρύσταλλο (Iceland spar), ασβεστίτησ. (various references) | |
Hungarian | mészpát. (various references) | |
Italian | calcite (calc spar, calcareous spar, Iceland spar). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 方解石 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ほうかいせき. (various references) | |
Korean | 방해석. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | alcitecay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | índice de saturação cálcico (calcite saturation indes, calcium saturation index). (various references) | |
Spanish | calcita (Iceland spar). (various references) | |
Swedish | kalcitmättnadsindex (calcite saturation indes, calcium saturation index), birdseye (birdseye, bird's-eye, calcite eye). (various references) | |
Turkish | kalsiyum karbonatı, kalsit. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "calcite": calcites. (additional references) | |
| |
"Calcite" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Cagccat, calacite, Calcarea, calcime, calcined, calcitic, Calcot, calcott, Calcut, calicite, Calixte, Callcott, callitee, callith, Callixte, Calvitti, carlite, Catcote, chalcidic, cilfit, cilite, Clapcott, Clicottee, clite, culchie. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "calcite" (pronounced ka"lsī't) |
| 3 | -s ī' t | andesite, anthracite, eyesight, foresight, granulocyte, hindsight, insight, leukocyte, lymphocyte, magnesite, oversight, parasite, phagocyte, plebiscite, website. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-c-e-i-l-t" | |
-1 letter: acetic, atelic, celiac, cicale, lactic. | |
-2 letters: cacti, cecal, cleat, eclat, ileac, telia, telic, tical. | |
-3 letters: alec, alit, cate, ceca, ceil, celt, cite, clit, etic, ilea, lace, laic, late, lati, lice, lite, tace, tael, tail, talc, tale, tali, teal, tela, tile. | |
-4 letters: ace, act, ail, ait, ale, alt, ate, cat, cel, eat, eta, ice, lac. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-c-e-i-l-t" | |
+1 letter: acetylic, calcites, canticle, hectical. | |
+2 letters: acclimate, ascetical, canticles, circulate, cockatiel, cuticulae, dialectic, eclamptic, inculcate, sceptical, technical. | |
+3 letters: accidental, accidently, acclimated, acclimates, acetylenic, apoplectic, cacomistle, catalectic, cataleptic, catchflies, chalcocite, circulated, circulates, cockatiels, cocktailed, complicate, conciliate, crackliest, dialectics, electrical, hectically, inculcated, inculcates, lactogenic, occidental, technicals. | |
+4 letters: acatalectic, acceptingly, accidentals, acclimatise, acclimatize, acclivities, alchemistic, anecdotical, anticyclone, ascetically, cacomistles, calisthenic, cancelation, candlestick, catalectics, cataleptics, catechismal, categorical, catholicate, catholicize, centrically, chalcocites, chanticleer, chocolatier, cholestatic, circinately, circulative, clericalist, climacteric, cocultivate, compactible, complicated, complicates, conciliated, conciliates, contractile, cytomegalic, dialectical, ectopically, ectoplasmic, electrician, fasciculate, incalescent, malpractice, narcoleptic, neocortical, practicable, precritical, recirculate, stickleback, technically, untechnical. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Photo Album | 5. Images: Digital Art 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
