Vulcanite is a rare copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 telluride

Telluride (chemistry)

The telluride ion is Te2−. It is the final stable member of the series of dianions O2−, S2−, and Se2− ....

 mineral

Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...

. The mineral has a metallic luster, and is a green or bronze-yellow shade. It has a hardness between 1 and 2 on the Moh's scale (between talc and gypsum). Its crystal structure is orthorhombic.

It is named after the place where it was discovered in 1961, the Good Hope Mine

Good Hope Mine

Good Hope Mine was the principal gold mine in the Pinacate Mining District, Riverside County, California.Good Hope Mine was reputedly discovered by a Frenchman named Mache, although the washes in the area were originally placer mined by Mexicans in the 1850's during the California Gold Rush using...

 in Vulcan, Gunnison County, Colorado

Gunnison County, Colorado

Gunnison County is the fifth most extensive of the 64 counties of the state of Colorado in the United States. The county population was 15,324 at the 2010 census. The county was named for John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer and captain in the Army Topographical Engineers, who surveyed...

, USA. Small deposits have also been discovered in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

, and Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. It occurs with native tellurium, rickardite

Rickardite

Rickardite is a copper telluride mineral . It occurs in Colorado, USA.-References:*D. M. Chizhikov and V. P. Shchastlivyi, 1966, Tellurium and Tellurides, Nauka Publishing, Moscow-External links:**...

, petzite

Petzite

The mineral petzite, Ag3AuTe2, is a soft, steel-gray telluride mineral generally deposited by hydrothermal activity. It forms isometric crystals, and is usually associated with rare tellurium and gold minerals, often with silver, mercury, and copper....

 and sylvanite

Sylvanite

Sylvanite or silver gold telluride, Te2, is the most common telluride of gold.-Properties:The gold:silver ratio varies from 3:1 to 1:1. It is a metallic mineral with a color that ranges from a steely gray to almost white. It is closely related to calaverite, which is more purely gold telluride with...

.