Resize Text: Fairbankite, ideally PbTe4+O3, is a rare secondary lead tellurite that forms from the oxidation of lead and telluride-bearing sulfides. The type locality is the Grand Central mine, Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona. Fairbankite is named in honor of Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank, organizer of the company that developed the Grand Central lode (Williams 1979). One fist-sized specimen of rock with fairbankite crystals was found on the waste dump of the mine by Sydney A. Williams (1979). Crystals are present as a thin crust lining the walls of voids left by leached galena. Fairbankite crystals are colorless and transparent and exhibit an adamantine luster; they are easily confused with anglesite or cerussite. Crystals have a hardness of 2, are brittle, and show no good cleavage.
Robert Eveleth, a retired senior mining engineer from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, is a noted authority on New Mexico mining history.
Dr. John Rakovan, an executive editor of Rocks & Minerals, is a professor of mineralogy and geochemistry at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
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