Rhodochrosite is a manganese carbonate mineral with chemical composition MnCO3. In its (rare) pure form, it is typically a rose-red color, but impure specimens can be shades of pink to pale brown. It streaks white, and its Mohs hardness varies between 3.5 and 4. Its specific gravity is between 3.5 and 3.7. It crystallizes in the trigonal system, and cleaves with rhombohedral carbonate cleavage in three directions.

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad watches as Pope John Paul II boards his plane at Damascus airport May 8, 2001 at the end of the Pontiff's four-day visit to Syria.

Finia, a visiting student from Hanover, cools off under a water sprinkler in front of the Chancellery on June 10, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Queen Ashi Jetsun Pema, 21, walks out after the marriage ceremony is completed on October 13, 2011 in Punakha, Bhutan. The Dzong is the same venue that hosted the King's historic coronation ceremony in 2008. The Oxford-educated king is popular in the country and the ceremony will be followed by celebration in the capital and countryside. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A Palestinian fighter from Ezz-Al Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, checks debris at the site of an Israeli air strike in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on December 26, 2019. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP Photo)

Chelyabinsk Airport employees take part in an exercise to evacuate aircraft passengers showing symptoms of the 2019-nCoV pneumonia-like coronavirus on February 5, 2020. (Photo by Nail Fattakhov/TASS)

National Police members disinfect Venezuelan citizens returning to the country from Colombia, as a preventive measure against the spread of the coronavirus –COVID19- at the Simon Boliviar International Bridge, in Cucuta, Colombia-Venezuela border, on April 4, 2020. Since the first case of COVID-19 was detected last March 6, Colombia has reported 1,406 people infected and 32 dead. (Photo by Schneyder Mendoza/AFP Photo)