Vivianite (Fe
3(PO
4)
2·8H
2O) is a hydrated iron(II) phosphate mineral found in a number of geological environments. Small amounts of manganese Mn, magnesium Mg, and calcium Ca may substitute for iron Fe in its structure. Pure vivianite is colorless, but the mineral oxidizes very easily, changing the color, and it is usually found as deep blue to deep bluish green prismatic to flattened crystals. Vivianite crystals are often found inside fossil shells, such as those of bivalves and gastropods, or attached to fossil bone. Vivianite can also appear on the iron coffins or on the corpses of humans as a result of a chemical reaction of the decomposing body with the iron enclosure.
It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner, the "father of German geology", in 1817, the year of his death, after either John Henry Vivian (1785–1855), a Welsh-Cornish politician, mine owner and mineralogist living in Truro, Cornwall, England, or after Jeffrey G. Vivian, an English mineralogist. Vivianite was discovered at Wheal Kind, in St Agnes, Cornwall.
