Native Mercury

Native Mercury occurs in a liquid form - these drops of native mercury have seeped out of the rock they formed in and are sitting on the surface of the rock as high-surface-tension liquid drops!

Lots of minerals are made of just 1 element: native copper for example, or native gold.

Native mercury, though, isn’t a solid at room temperatures and pressures — it’s a liquid. This native mercury probably formed as solid crystals under extreme pressure; however, now that they are at the surface of the Earth, they are reverting back to liquid and seeping out of the rock. Each shiny speck on this rock is a drop of liquid mercury sitting on the surface of the rock as high-surface-tension liquid drops!

Bryn Mawr Vaux Collection, Sample #559.