Cronstedtite from Lostwithiel, Cornwall, England, in which two polytypic groups (A and C) are present within the same crystal, has been investigated using various techniques to reveal the distribution of the two groups and the relationship between polytypic structure and chemical composition. X-ray precession photographs from cleaved fragments of pyramidal crystals revealed the variable proportions of the two groups from the top to the base. Near the top, the crystal consists entirely of group C, with 1T as the dominant polytype. Near the base, both groups A and C are present. Back-scattered electron images from cross-sections parallel to the pyramidal axis showed mosaic contrast near the base, suggesting that two compositionally-different domains of several tens of microns in size are present, whereas the contrast was uniform near the top. Electron microprobe chemical analysis indicated the compositions $\left({\text{Fe}}_{2.31}^{2+}{\text{Fe}}_{0.69}^{3+}\right)\left({\text{Si}}_{1.31}{\text{Fe}}_{0.69}^{3+}\right){\text{O}}_5{\left(\text{OH}\right)}_4$ and $\left({\text{Fe}}_{2.16}^{2+}{\text{Fe}}_{0.84}^{3+}\right)\left({\text{Si}}_{1.16}{\text{Fe}}_{0.84}^{3+}\right){\text{O}}_5{\left(\text{OH}\right)}_4$. Electron back-scattered patterns (EBSPs) confirmed that the domain with Si-rich composition belongs to group C and that with Si-poor composition to group A. This is the first evidence that specific chemical compositions are related to the polytypic structures in cronstedtite. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that intergrowth of groups A and C at the monolayer level is also present as stacking disorder in both domains near the base, whereas such intergrowth was not observed in the region near the top.

An open source software package dedicated to processing stored electron backscatter patterns is presented. The package gives users full control over the type and order of operations that are performed on electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) patterns as well as the results obtained. The current version of EBSD-Image (www.ebsd-image.org) offers a flexible and structured interface to calculate various quality metrics over large datasets. It includes unique features such as practical file formats for storing diffraction patterns and analysis results, stitching of mappings with automatic reorganization of their diffraction patterns, and routines for processing data on a distributed computer grid. Implementations of the algorithms used in the software are described and benchmarked using simulated diffraction patterns. Using those simulated EBSD patterns, the detection of Kikuchi bands in EBSD-Image was found to be comparable to commercially available EBSD systems. In addition, 24 quality metrics were evaluated based on the ability to assess the level of deformation in two samples (copper and iron) deformed using 220 grit SiC grinding paper. Fourteen metrics were able to properly measure the deformation gradient of the samples.