Massicot

Massicot is one of the natural mineral forms of lead(II) oxide, PbO. Massicot is the orthorhombic dimorph of the tetragonal form of lead oxide, litharge. It forms soft (Mohs hardness of 2) yellow to reddish-yellow, earthy, scaley masses which are very dense, with a specific gravity of 9.64.

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It was first described in 1841 for an occurrence in Stolberg, near Aachen, Germany. The name is French for lead oxide.

References

• Palache, C., H. Berman, and C. Frondel (1944) Dana’s system of mineralogy, (7th edition), v. I, 516–517
• Webmineral data
• Mindat with location data
• Mineral data publishing - PDF