Cinnabar mineral
Cinnabar is the trigonal mercury sulfide mineral alpha-HgS, distinct from cubic metacinnabar, hypercinnabar, elemental mercury and unspecified Hg-S particles. The September 2026 IMA list gives grandfathered status but an unknown original-description year; no approval accession is inferred. The curated study concerns laboratory mercury mobilization from source-assigned commercial cinnabar, not microbial formation of the species or isolation of a recovered product. No criticality designation is inherited from mercury or sulfur.
Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)
Enhanced aqueous mercury mobilization in oxic community microcosms
bioleaching
Microbial
Living biofilm material from the New Idria acid mine drainage system enhanced aqueous mercury release from source-assigned cinnabar relative to gamma-inactivated biomass and uninoculated controls under oxic laboratory conditions. The mixed community contained iron- and sulfur-oxidizing taxa, but neither a particular organism nor direct cell-surface sulfur oxidation was established as the cause. Indirect iron cycling and nonmetabolic organic ligands remain alternatives.
Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
The August 2008 experiment used commercial Alfa Aesar cinnabar, reported as greater than 99.99 percent pure, with uncontrolled particle size. Mineral solids and killed-biomass controls received 18 hours of cesium-137 gamma irradiation. Each 250 mL flask received 2 g mineral and filtered New Idria drainage water at pH 3.25; oxic reactors contained 150 mL, whereas anoxic reactors and abiotic controls contained 100 mL. Inoculated reactors received 100 microlitres of living or irradiated biofilm, corresponding to 7.88 or 8.12 micrograms protein. Incubation was unshaken at 21 degrees C for 30 days oxically or 18 days in an anoxic glove box. Anoxic medium was initially unpurged and vessels were removed for sampling. Mercury samples were filtered at 0.02 micrometres, BrCl-preserved and measured by cold-vapor atomic fluorescence; this is operationally filtered total Hg, not independently speciated Hg(II) or an isolated recovery yield. No causal taxon or strain identifier is assigned to the unresolved consortium.
The August 2008 experiment used commercial Alfa Aesar cinnabar, reported as greater than 99.99 percent pure, with uncontrolled particle size. Mineral solids and killed-biomass controls received 18 hours of cesium-137 gamma irradiation. Each 250 mL flask received 2 g mineral and filtered New Idria drainage water at pH 3.25; oxic reactors contained 150 mL, whereas anoxic reactors and abiotic controls contained 100 mL. Inoculated reactors received 100 microlitres of living or irradiated biofilm, corresponding to 7.88 or 8.12 micrograms protein. Incubation was unshaken at 21 degrees C for 30 days oxically or 18 days in an anoxic glove box. Anoxic medium was initially unpurged and vessels were removed for sampling. Mercury samples were filtered at 0.02 micrometres, BrCl-preserved and measured by cold-vapor atomic fluorescence; this is operationally filtered total Hg, not independently speciated Hg(II) or an isolated recovery yield. No causal taxon or strain identifier is assigned to the unresolved consortium.
Curated Evidence Points:
Support
Source:
jew2014
Results, Hg concentrations, and Figure 2 (pages 25-26) show higher filtered Hg in the live oxic cinnabar series than the corresponding killed series. The reported abiotic series declined below detection within nine days but is not plotted in Figure 2. Figure 4 separately shows Fe(II) depletion in the live cinnabar arm. These observations support community-associated mobilization, without establishing which coupled chemical or microbial reaction caused it. The large concentrations reported for calcine and metacinnabar are not transferred to cinnabar.
Partial
Source:
jew2014
Materials and Methods, Sample preparation (pages 22-23), describes bulk XRD and peak matching, then reports mineralogy for the mixed tailings and calcine. No cinnabar-feed diffractogram or quantitative polymorph refinement is displayed; the commercial name and stated purity are not independent proof of phase purity after irradiation. This qualified feed assignment does not identify every HgS particle in the separate mixed-waste experiments as cinnabar.
Partial
Source:
jew2014
Figure 2 reports error of plus or minus eight percent with n=3, while Methods describes 25 total microcosms across five substrates and five conditions without specifying independent reactor replication. Analytical repeat measurements cannot be assumed to represent three biological reactors. Different solution volumes, slightly different added protein amounts, undefined particle size and irradiation-altered biomass limit quantitative attribution. Filtration reduces colloids but does not establish a dissolved-ion mass balance or exclude particles smaller than the pore size.
Partial
Source:
jew2014
Figure 3 (page 26) shows a small initial Hg pulse followed by decline in the anoxic cinnabar series. Residual oxygen and sampling outside the glove box qualify a strict oxygen-necessity interpretation. Discussion, HgS dissolution (page 29), reports no Hg(II) increase for an isolated Thiomonas strain in separately prepared laboratory medium; this null does not prove inactivity in the complete drainage community. The Fe/S-cycling cartoon in Figure 6 is explicitly hypothetical, and no causal mutant or enzyme test is presented.
Partial
Source:
jew2014
The text on page 29 derives an activity quotient using the metacinnabar day-three sample and compares it with idealized equilibrium constants. Its orders-of-magnitude solubility claim is not a measured cinnabar recovery factor. Page 25 describes abiotic Hg declining below detection, whereas pages 28-30 discuss release in abiotic and killed oxic controls and say they closely mirrored each other; the absent plotted abiotic Hg series leaves this wording conflict unresolved. No environmental flux, industrial deployment or successful detoxification is established.
Sources & References
-
ima_2026_09: IMA-CNMNC. The New IMA List of Minerals, September 2026. Cinnabar row, PDF page 46; page 1 defines status G and distinguishes original-description years from approval numbers. Complete retained original rechecked.
https://cnmnc.units.it/files/editor/IMA_Master_List_(2026-09).pdf (accessed 2026-10-15) -
handbook_cinnabar: Handbook of Mineralogy. Cinnabar, version 1 (2001-2005), complete one-page entry: HgS, point group 32, space groups P3121/P3221 and distinction from metacinnabar and hypercinnabar. The entry uses the broader hexagonal crystal-system heading for this trigonal species.
https://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/cinnabar.pdf (accessed 2026-10-15) -
jew2014: Jew, Behrens, Rytuba, Kappler, Spormann and Brown (2014; online 2013). Microbially enhanced dissolution of HgS in an acid mine drainage system in the California Coast Range. Geobiology 12:20-33. Complete 14-page original, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Tables 1-2 and Figures 1-6; no supplement citation identified in this original.
https://doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12066 (accessed 2026-10-15)
Curation History
| Timestamp | Curator | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
2026-10-15T00:06:41Z |
codex (GPT-6; codex) | CREATE | Created cinnabar with qualified primary evidence for community-associated aqueous mercury mobilization, retaining source-assigned phase identity, controls, null isolate results and unresolved pathway/replication limits. |
Record source: data/records/cinnabar.yaml