Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:49:16.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Eggonite (Kolbeckite, Sterrettite), ScPO4 · 2H2O

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

M. H. Hey
Affiliation:
British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7
Charles Milton
Affiliation:
The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052
Edward J. Dwornik
Affiliation:
US Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia 22092

Synopsis

The curious history of the mineral eggonite is reviewed, and two new occurrences are described. The original specimens, for which Schrauf gave good morphological and optical data in 1879, with a tentative suggestion that it was a cadmium silicate, were fakes; the tiny crystals of the new mineral were glued on to hemimorphite specimens from Altenberg, Belgium. In 1929, Zimanyi edited and published observations by Krenner, who found the mineral on silver ores from Felsöbánya, Hungary, added to Schrauf's physical data, and identified it as an aluminium phosphate. It was not until 1959 that Mrose and Wappner showed that it is scandium phosphate, ScPO4 · 2H2O, and essentially identical with kolbeckite, described by Edelmann in 1926 as a phosphate and silicate of beryllium, aluminium, and calcium from Saxony, and with sterrettite, described by Larsen and Montgomery in 1940 as an aluminium phosphate from Fairfield, Utah.

In 1980 the IMA Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, while accepting the identity of the three minerals and rejecting the name sterrettite, were almost equally divided over the names eggonite and kolbeckite, which are thus both acceptable; since eggonite has 47 years priority, we suggest that it should have preference.

The available physical and chemical data on eggonite are summarized and added to, and two new occurrences, at Potash Sulfur Springs, Arkansas, and at Sakpur, Gujarat, India, are described.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1982

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

1879 Schrauf, A., Z.Krystallogr.Mineral. 3, 352–6.Google Scholar
1892 Dana, E.S., syst.Mineral., 6th edn, 905Google Scholar
1926 Edelmann, F., Jahrb. Berg. Huttenwes. Sachsen, 100, A10 [M.A.3,472]Google Scholar
1929 Krenner, J. (Zimanyi, K., ed.), Centralbl. Mineral. 34-8 [M.A.4,332]Google Scholar
1932 Thurnwald, Hilde and Benedetti-Pichler, A.A., Mikrochemie, 11, 200–20 [M.A.5,299]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1934 Larson, E.S. and Berman, H., Bull.U.S. Geol. Surv. 848, 164 Google Scholar
1940 Larsen, E.S., 3rd, and Montgomery, A., Am.Mineral. 22, 513–8 [M.A.8,3]Google Scholar
1941 Bannister, F.A., Mineral.Mag. 26, 131–3Google Scholar
1942 Fleischer, M., Am.Mineral. 27, 653 Google Scholar
1947 Senroeder, R. and Borchert, W., Heidelberg.Beitr.Mineral. Petrogr. 1, l10–1 [M.A.10,386]Google Scholar
1950 Hey, M.H., Index of Mineral Species and Varieties, 408. Brit. Mus. (Nat.Mist.)Google Scholar
1951 Palache, C., Berman, H. and Frondel, C., Dana's Syst.Mineral., 7th edn, 2, 965 and 1015Google Scholar
1954 Tokody, L., Neues Jahrb.Mineral., Monatsh, 204–7 [M.A.12, 474]Google Scholar
1959 Mrose, M.E. and Wappner, B., Bull.Geol. Soc.Am. 70, 1648–9 (abstr.)Google Scholar
1965 Mrose, M.E., Am.Mineral. 50, 288 (abstr.)Google Scholar
1968 Frondel, C. and Ito, J., Am.Mineral. 53, 943–53 [M.A.69-307]Google Scholar