Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:40:03.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The relationship between mineral composition, crystal structure and paragenetic sequence: the case of secondary Te mineralization at the Bird Nest drift, Otto Mountain, California, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Andrew G. Christy ,
Stuart J. Mills ,
Anthony R. Kampf ,
Robert M. Housley ,
Brent Thorne  and
Joe Marty
Andrew G. Christy*
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics, Research School of Physics & Engineering, Mills Rd, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Stuart J. Mills
Affiliation:
Geosciences, Museum Victoria, GPO Box 666, Melbourne 3001, Victoria, Australia
Anthony R. Kampf
Affiliation:
Mineral Sciences Department, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA
Robert M. Housley
Affiliation:
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
Brent Thorne
Affiliation:
53898 S. Newport Circle, Bountiful, UT 84010, USA
Joe Marty
Affiliation:
65199 E. Silver Oak Road, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, USA
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An unusually diverse array of 25 secondary Te oxysalt minerals has been documented from Otto Mountain, California, and 18 of these from the Bird Nest drift sublocality. A paragenetic sequence for these minerals is proposed, using observed overgrowth relationships plus spatial association data and data from other localities. Apart from Te and O, the components Pb, Cu and H are essential in the majority of the minerals. The atomic Cu/Te ratio decreases through the paragenetic sequence. This, and the occurrence of minerals with additional components such as Cl–, CO32–, SO42– and Fe3+ at an intermediate stage, suggests nonmonotonic evolution of the parent fluids, reflecting differing access to or spatial distribution of various components. For the minerals with known crystal structures, two alternative 'structural units' were identified, one consisting only of the Te4+ or Te6+ oxyanion, while the other also included small, strongly-bound cations such as Cu2+. The degree of polymerization for the Te oxyanion correlated with the paragenetic sequence: the monomeric tellurate anions of early minerals were replaced progressively by dimers, chains and sheet structures, which may relate to a decreasing abundance of the 'network modifying' Cu2+ cation, analogous to Bowen's discontinuous reaction series in igneous rock-forming silicates. No relationship was seen between paragenetic order and the larger type of structural unit, or structural complexity as defined by information content. This contrasts with results in the literature for evaporite sulfates and pegmatite phosphates. While structure–paragenesis relationships may be widespread, the exact nature of such relationships may be different for different chemical systems and different paragenetic environments.

Keywords

TellurateTelluriteCrystal StructureParagenetic SequenceComplexitySecondary MineralsOtto MountainCalifornia
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 291 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Birch, W.D. (1993) Phosphate minerals in granitic rocks. Pp. 5-40 in: Phosphate Minerals of Victori. (W.D. Birch and D.A. Henry, editors). Special Publication no. 3. The Mineralogical Society of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.Google Scholar
Birch, W.D. and Van der Heyden,.A. (1988) Minerals from the Kintore Opencut, Broken Hill, New South Wales. Mineralogical Record. 19, 425—436.Google Scholar
Birch, W.D., Mills, S.J., Maas, R. and Hellstrom, J.C. (2011) A chronology for Late Quaternary weathering in the Murray Basin, southeastern Australia: evidence from 230 Th/U dating of secondary uranium phosphates in the Lake Boga and Wycheproof granites, Victoria. Australian Joutrnal of Earth Sciences, 58, 835—845 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bottinga, Y and Weill, D.F. (1972) The viscosity of magmatic silicate liquids: a model for calculation. American Journal of Science, 272, 438—475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowen, N.L. (1922) The reaction principle in petrogen-esis. Journal of Geology, 30, 177–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bragg, W.L. (1930) The structure of silicates. Zeitschrift für Kristallographie, 74, 237–305. Google Scholar
Brown, I.D. (1981) The bond-valence method: an empirical approach to chemical structure and bonding. Pp. 1-30. in: Structure and Bonding in Crystals (M. O'Keeffe and A. Navrotsky, editors). Vol. 2. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Burns, P.C. (1995) Borate clusters and fundamental building blocks containing four polyhedra: why few clusters are utilized as fundamental building blocks of structures. The Canadian Mineralogist, 33,1167–1176.Google Scholar
Burns, P.C., Cooper, M.A. and Hawthorne, F.C. (1995) Parakhinite, Cu3 2 + Pb 2+ Te 6+ O 6 (OH) 2 : crystal structure and revision of the chemical formula.The Canadian Mineralogist, 33,33–40.Google Scholar
Carbone, C., Basso, R., Cabella, R., Martinelli, A., Grice, J.D. and Lucchetti, G. (2013) Mcalpineite from the Gambatesa mine, Itraly, and redefinition of the species. American Mineralogist, 98, 1899–1905. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christ, C.L. (1960) Crystal chemistry and systematic classification of hydrated borate minerals. American Mineralogist, 45, 334–340. Google Scholar
Christy, A.G. (2015) Causes of anomalous mineralogical diversity in the Periodic Table. Mineralogical Magazine, 79, 33–49. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christy, A.G. and Mills, S.J. (2013) Effect of lone-pair stereoactivity on polyhedral volume and structural flexibility: application to TeIV O 6 . octahedra. Acta Crystallographica, B69, 446–456.Google Scholar
Christy, A.G., Kampf, A.R., Mills, S.J., Housley, R.M. and Thorne, B. (2015) Crystal structure and revised chemical formula for burckhardtite, Pb 2 (Fe 3+ Te 6+ ) [AlSi 3 O 8 ]O 6 : a double-sheet silicate with intercalated phyllotellurate layers. Mineralogical Magazine, 78, 1763–1773. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christy, A.G., Mills, S.J. and Kampf, A.R. (2016) A review of the structural architecture of tellurium oxycompounds. Mineralogical Magazine, 80, doi: 10.1180/minmag.2016.080.093CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, N.J., Ciobanu, C.J., Spry, P.G. and Voudouris, P. (2009) Understanding gold-(silver)-telluride-(selen-ide) mineral deposits. Episodes, 32, 249–263. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, M.A., Hawthorne, F.C. and Back, M.E. (2008) The crystal structure of khinite and polytypism in khinite and parakhinite. Mineralogical Magazine,, 72, 763–770. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estevez-Rams, E. and González-Férez, R. (2009) On the concept of long-range order in solids: the use of algorithmic complexity. Zeitschrift für Kristallographie, 224, 179–184. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, J.D. and Roberts, A.C. (1995) Frankhawthorneite, a unique HCP framework structure of a cupric tellurate. The Canadian Mineralogist, 33, 649–654.Google Scholar
Grundler, P.V., Brugger, J., Etschmann, B.E., Helm, L., Liu, W., Spry, P.G., Tian, Y., Testemale, D. and Pring, A. (2013) Speciation of aqueous tellurium(IV) in hydrothermal solutions and vapors, and the role of oxidized tellurium species in Te transport and gold deposition. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 120, 298–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawthorne, F.C. (1979) The crystal structure of morinite. The Canadian Mineralogist, 17, 93—102 Google Scholar
Hawthorne, F.C. (1983) Graphical enumeration of polyhe¬dral clusters. Acta Crystallographica, A39, 724—736 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawthorne, F.C. (1985) Towards a structural classification of minerals: the vi Mi v T 2 O n minerals. American Mineralogist, 70,455–473.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, F.C. (1990) Structural hierarchy inM [6 ]T[ 4] j n minerals. Zeitschrift für Kristallographie, 192, 1—52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawthorne, F.C. (1992) Bond topology, bond valence and structure stability. Pp. 25-87 in: The Stability of Minerals (G.D. Price and N.L. Ross, editors). Mineralogical Society Series, vol. 3. Chapman and Hall, London.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, F.C. (2014) The structure hierarchy hypoth¬esis. Mineralogical Magazine, 78, 957—1027 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawthorne, EC, Cooper, M.A. and Back, M.E. (2009) Khinite-4O (= khinite) andkhinite-3 T(= parakhinite). The Canadian Mineralogist, 47, 473—476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Housley, R.M., Kampf, A.R., Mills, S.J., Marty, J. and Thorne, B. (2011) The remarkable occurrence of rare secondary minerals at Otto Mountain near Baker, California - including seven new species. Rocks & Minerals, 86(2), 132–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonsson, E. and Broman, C. (2002) Fluid inclusions in late-stage Pb-Mn-As-Sb mineral assemblages in the Långban deposit, Bergslagen, Sweden. The Canadian Mineralogist, 40, 47–65. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kampf, A.R., Housley, R.M., Mills, S.J., Marty, J. and Thorne, B. (2010a) Lead-tellurium oxysalts from Otto Mountain near Baker, California: I. Ottoite, Pb 2 TeO 5 , a new mineral with chains of tellurate octahedra. American Mineralogist, 95, 1329—1336 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kampf, A.R., Marty, J. and Thorne, B. (2010b) Lead-tellurium oxysalts from Otto Mountain near Baker, California: II. Housleyite, Pb 6 CuTe 4 O1 8 (OH) 2 , a new mineral with Cu-Te octahedral sheets. American Mineralogist, 95, 1337–1342. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kampf, A.R., Housley, R.M. and Marty, J. (2010c) Lead-tellurium oxysalts from Otto Mountain near Baker,Google Scholar