Bideauxite was named for American mineralogist Richard A. Bideaux.
Its type locality of Mammoth-St Anthony Mine, Tiger, Pinal County,
Arizona, USA is famous for wonderful lead minerals.
Other lead minerals from here include
phosgenite,
Bideauxite is a beautiful mineral. It forms well shaped cubic crystals that look like fluorite cubes. The color however is more variable than most fluorite specimens which are either strongly colored or colorless, but usually not both. In bideauxite, there can be deep purple colors in the crystal cores with strikingly colorless exteriors. Also in the same specimens there can be deeply colored cubes nested beside perfectly colorless cubes. The lack of cleavage and greater density for bideauxite are diagnostic in distinguishing it from fluorite. Unfortunately for collectors, bideauxite is extremely rare and hard to find on the mineral market.
Bideauxite and others minerals with similar chemistries belong to a division in the Halide Class called the Oxyhalides and Hydroxyhalides.
These minerals have either oxygen or hydroxide groups in their chemistries.
The oxygen atom in their chemistries might require their classification in the
Oxides Class
of minerals except that their structures are more tied to the halide elements and the oxygens and hydroxides are kind of superfluous to the overall structure.
Some other members of the Oxyhalides and Hydroxyhalides include
boleite,
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