Kerstenite

Vitreous

Orthorhombic

For Karl Moritz Kersten (19 July 1803, Zöblitz, Erzgebirgskreis, Saxony, Germany - 10 November 1850, Colditz, Leipzig, Saxony, Germany), Professor of Chemistry, Freiberg School of Mines.

Karl Moritz Kersten studied chemistry and related sciences at the Bergakademie Freiberg, with Friedrich Stromeyer at the University of Göttingen and with Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Pierre Berthier in Paris. In 1821, he became a member of the Corps (similar to a fraternity) Montania Freiberg.

After his return to Freiberg in 1829, he became senior ironworks assessor in 1830 and professor of analytical and practical chemistry at the Mining Academy in 1836. Since 1829 he taught the second and from 1837 the first course in analytical chemistry. In 1842, he became acting successor to Wilhelm August Lampadius, but had to interrupt his teaching work, which had already been impaired by a mental disorder, from 1843 to 1846 before he was finally released as mentally ill in 1847. He died in the Colditz Castle mental asylum in 1848. 1850.

Kersten's numerous publications are evidence of his intensive and well-founded work in the fields of analytical chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. In 1830, he first discovered selenium in the pitchblende of the magnesium-carbonate-pitchblende formation (mgu formation) in the Schneeberg district. In 1844, he was the first to describe chapmanite from the Neue Hoffnung Gottes mine in Bräunsdorf (Oberschöna), which he characterized as a “hypochlorite-like mineral”.