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Cinnabar was mined by the Roman Empire for its mercury content and it has been the main ore of mercury throughout the centuries. Some mines used by the Romans are still being mined today. It is generally found as a vein-filling mineral associated with recent volcanic activity and alkaline hot springs.

Cinnabar is generally found in a massive, granular or earthy form, and is bright scarlet to brick red in color. However, it occasionally occurs in crystals with a metallic adamantine luster. The crystals belong to the rhombohedral (trigonal) system, and are generally of rhombohedral habit, sometimes twinned. The twinning in cinnabar is distinctive and forms a penetration twin that is ridged with six ridges surrounding the point of a pryamid. It could be thought of as two scalahedral crystals grown together with one crystal going the opposite way of the other crystal.

Cinnabar presents remarkable resemblance to quartz in its symmetry and optical characteristics. Like quartz, it exhibits circular polarization, and Alfred Des CloizeauxAlfred Louis Olivier Legrand Des Cloizeaux ( October 17, 1817 May 6, 1897) was a French mineralogist. Des Cloizeaux was born at Beauvais, in the department of Oise. He studied with Jean-Baptiste Biot at the College de France. He became professor of minera showed that it possessed fifteen times the rotatory power of quartz. It has higher refractiveThis article refers to refraction in waves. For refraction in metals, see refraction (metallurgy . Ripple tank Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in velocity. It happens when waves travel from a medium with a given refractive power than any other known mineral, its mean index for sodiumSodium is the chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Na Natrium in Latin) and atom number 11. Sodium is a soft, waxy, silvery reactive metal belonging to the alkali metals that is abundant in natural compounds (especially halite). light being 3 ~O2, while the index for diamond -- a substance of remarkable refraction -- is only 2~42. The hardnessMohs' scale of mineral hardness characterizes the scratch resistance of various minerals through the ability of a harder material to scratch a softer. It was created by the German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs and is one of several definitions of hardness i of cinnabar is 3, and its specific gravity 8.998.

Cinnabar is found in all localities which yield mercury, notably AlmadenThis article is about the town in Spain. For other meanings, see Almaden (disambiguation). Almaden is a town in Spain, about sixty miles north of Cordova. It is noted for its quicksilver mines, which are the oldest and among the largest in the world. ( SpainThe Kingdom of Spain is a country located in the southwest of Europe. It shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It inc), New Almaden ( CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located in the western United States, bordering the Pacific Ocean. The most populous and third largest state in the U. California is both physically and demographically diverse. The state's official nickname is "The Golden State", wh), Idrija ( Slovenia), Landsberg, near Ober-Moschel in the Palatinate, Ripa , at the foot of the Apuan Alps ( Tuscany), the mountain Avala (Serbia), Huancavelica ( Peru), and the province of Kweichow in China, where very fine crystals have been obtained. Cinnabar is still being deposited at the present day from the hot waters of Sulphur Bank , in California, and Steamboat Springs, Nevada.

Hepatic cinnabar is an impure variety from Idrija in Carniola, in which the cinnabar is mixed with bituminous and earthy matter.

Metacinnabarite is a cubic form of mercury (II) sulfide, this compound being dimorphous.