Okanoganite, a New Rare-Earth Borofluorosilicate from the Golden Hom Batholitb Okanogancounty, Washington
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American Mineralogist, Volume 65, pages II38-1142, 1980 Okanoganite, a new rare-earth borofluorosilicate from the Golden Hom batholitb OkanoganCounty, Washington Russnrr C. Boccs Departmentof GeologicalSciences, University of Califurnia Santa Barbara, Califurnia 93106 Abstract Okanoganite is found in miarolitic cavities in the arfvedsonite granite phase of the Golden Horn batholith, near Washington Pass,Okanogan County, $y'ashington.It occurs as tan to pale pink pseudotetrahedraltwinned crystalsup to 4 mm across.A combination of electron microprobe analysesand spectrophotometric analyses for B2O3give the following formula: (Nau*Car.*Pboro)[(Y,Ce,Nd,La)rr".rCar.^Fe,u,](Si,r rrTlo*)Bu*Or, -F42.4r,with an ideal for- mula of (Na,Ca)r(Y,Ce,Nd,La),rSi5B2O27FA.The crystals are pseudotetrahedralfourlings with twin plane {0114}, the c face of each individual forming the faces of the pseudo- tetrahedron. The mineral is rhombohedral with possible spacegroup R3, R3, R32,R3m, R3m, R3c,or R3c.The cell dimensionsare 4 : 10.12(l),c : 27.05(8)A,Z:3 (hexagonalcell) or a :10.94(3)A,a:58.?(3)",2:l(rhombohedralcell).D(meas):4.35,D(calc):4.37.Ttie strongestlines [4 I), (hkl)l of the X-ray powder pauern (68 given) are 4.38(4\QA); 3.rr(a8)(300); 2.e70(100X027); 2.e3e(e5)(125); 2.e26(s0)(303); 2.676(32)(220); 1.978(35X325,413);1.822(32)(3.0.12); 1.784(43X330,2.0.14). The refractive indices are a : 1.753,e: 1.740;the mineral showsno dichroism and is colorlessin thin fragments;streak : white; H : 4. It showsno fluorescenceor phosphoresoenoeunder UY radiation and does not cathodeluminesce.The nane is for OkanoganCounty, $y'65hington. Introduction Occurrence The Eocene Golden Hom batholith crops out over Okanoganite occurs in miarolitic cavities, which 310 km' in the northern CascadeMountains in range from I to 5 cm in diameter, within the per- Okanogan, Chelan, and Skagit Counties, \{65hing- alkaline arfvedsonite granite phase of the Golden ton (Stull, 1969). Horn batholith, which crops out as an approxinately Miarolitic cavities in the batholith contain a num- horizontal zone between 1800 and 240o m in eleva- ber of rare and unusual minerals, including at least tion in the southeasternpart of the batholith. I first two new minerals,zektzeite, NaLZrSioO,, (Dunn el found the mineral as only a few small crystals (less al., 1977), and okanoganite, named for Okanogan than ten mg) in two cavities in September, 1976. County. The mineral and the name were approved Later additional material of better quality was found by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral by Robert M. Boggs on specimenshe collected in Names, IMA, prior to publication; the name is pro- August, 1976,and the descriptionis basedchiefly on nouncedoh-ka-NOG-an-ite. Type material has been this material, which totals a few hundred milligrams. deposited in the mineral collection at the University Associated minerals within the cavities, which of California, Santa Barbara (specimens#UCSB show no zonation of the minerals, are quartz, micro- 8256 and 8257).Cotype material has been deposited cline (perthite), zircon, arfvedsonite, bastnaesite,zek- in the National Museum of Natural History, Smith- tzeite, astrophyllite, a pale green mica (probably sonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (NMNH polylithionite, based on its optics and contents of #142512 to 142514),and in the collection of the au- SiO2,Al2Or, trlrO, and F, there being insufficient ma- thor (specimens#T550 to T555). terial to determine the LirO content), and an uniden- 0003-004x/80/lI 12-l 138$02.00 l 138 BOGGS: OKANOGANITE I 139 tified calcium rare-earthminsl4l goil4ining fluorine. s{l0la} bevelingthe edgesof the crystals(Fig. lc). A Other minerals found in the miarottic cavities, but few crystals show an interpenetrating lwinning with not associatedwith okanoganite, include acmite, the additional composition plane {1012} (Fig. ld). plagioclase, elpidite, gagarinite, allanite, prehnite, The twin law is the same in both cases,and is de- epidote, fluorite, titanite, siderite, biotite, monazite, scribed by a l80o rotation about a twin axis per- calcite, galena, anatase, fayalite, thorite, gadolinite, pendicularto {0114}. and several as yet unidentified minerals. The crystals have a hardness of 4. In a few cases The sequenceof formation in the miarolitic cav- the surface is altered to a softer material. In a few ities containing okanoganite was as follows: (earliest) specimensthe okanoganite has altered to an uniden- arfvedsonite, microcline, quartz, astrophyllite, Kk- tified calcium rare-earth mineral 666aining fluorine. lzerite, zircon, okanoganite, polylithionite, bastnaes- This mineral, which also occurs as light yellow- ite, and an unidentffied calcium rare-earth mineral brown tabular crystals of crude hexagonal outline (atest). and less than 0.5 mm wide, could be a carbonate of the parisite group. Physical properties, habit and twinning Okanoganitehas a densityof 4.35(+0.04) gm/ctr, Okanoganite crystals are tan to pale pink and are measuredwith a Berman balanceon a 21.3mg crys- generally about I rlm across,with the largest crystal tal cluster in toluene at 21"C. Using the observed ra- found being 4 mm across. They occur both as iso- tios of rare-earth elements and a Na:Ca ratio of lated fourlings perched on crystals of microcline, arf- 2.5: I gives a calculated densrty of 4.37 gmlcm', in vedsonite,zircon, andzektzeite and as compactly in- good agreement with the measuredvalue. Okanoga- tergrown clustersof crystalsup to 8 X 4 x 4 mm. nite is uniaxial negativewith ar: 1.753and e: 1.740 The crystals appear to be isometric tetrahedrons, (each +0.002) in white light, shows no dichroism, is but are actually fourlings twinned on composition colorless in thin fragments, and has a white streak. plane {0114} with the c face of eachindividual form- Okanoganite does not fluoresce or phosphoresoeun- ing the faces of the pseudotetrahedra(Figs. la and der either long or short wave UV radiation, and does lb). A few crystals have minor faces of the form not cathodeluminesce. Applyng the Gladstone-Dale relationship with the constantsof Mandarino (1976)gives a value of K. which ranges from 0.149 to 0.166, depending on which value of k for YrO, is used (0.170or 0.195) (Mandarino, 1978),whether the Fe is consideredas FeO or FerOr, and whether any or all of the Ce is CeOz. The measured refractive indices and density give a value of 0.172 for ^fii. This gives values of (l-K,/K) which range from 0.186 to 0.036. These values indicate poor to excellent compatibility be- tween the density, refractive indices, and chemical composition(Mandarino, 1979\. X-ray crystallography A tabular single crystal was prepared by cement- ing one of the twinned crystals to a glassslide on one of its c faces and grinding away most of the other three individuals. All the crystals have slightly curved faces, resulting in multi-domained crystals which produce poor quality single-crystal photo- graphs. The cell dimensions were determined from this crystal by means of an hlco precession photo- Fig. l ldealized drawings of crystals of okanoganite. The graph and an hol Weissenbergphotograph. The cell by the subscripted individuals in each fourling are diferentiated from a least-squaresrefinement of the X- numb€rs. Forms present are c{0001} and s{10f4}. Drawing b dimensions shovs a fourling with one of the individuals separated to better ray powder diffraction pattern (Table l) run on a dif- show the twinniry relationshiP. fractometer at a scan speed of lo /min, standardized I l,tO BOGGS: OKANOGANITE with annealed slmthetic CaF.. (a : 5.459A), using R3, R32, R3m, RIm, R3c, or Ric. A Laue photo- CuKa radiation(I : 1.54178A;are: a: 10.72(l),c : graph made as an attempt to further define the space 27.05(S)A (hexagonal cell) or a : 10.94Q)A, c : group was inconclusive due to its poor quality. 58.7(3)' (rhombohedralcell). The single-crystal photographs and the lines of the Chemical composition powder pattern with d values greater than 3.00A Two crystal clusters were embedded in epoxy, showed the extinction -htk*l:3n. and all lines of ground and polished, and coated with approximately the powder pattern could be indexed to observe this 200A of carbon. Analyses were made with an ARL extinction. It was not possible to confirm or deny any electron microprobe, using an acceleratingvoltage of other extinctions due to the poor quality of the pho- 15 kV and a sample current of l0 nanoamps.The tographs. This indicates as possible spacegroups: R3, spot size was 20 pm. Standards used were rare-earth, Table L X-ray powder diffraction data for okanoganite and a related unnamed rare-earth fluorosilicate from Siberia Siberian rare-earth Olrenoooni to Siberian f lmro-si11cate* Okanogmite rare-earth fluoro-silicate* hkr, d _ d- I, q. I _ hkr d - d. r. I. calc obs oDs oDs obs calc obs obs oDs oDa 003 9.O2 9.0r 4 505 r.756 t.755 18 t.755 0r2 7.65 7.67 12 r.2.14 r.693 1.695 4 104 5,47 5.48 7 o57 r.673 I 110 5.36 5.35 7 iis i:;;; i t'672 16 r.674 20 015 4.67 4.67 13 lsq -'---I co2 \ | r. sgo 6 1.596 t5 021 4.57 4.57 5 0.2.16 1.s89J 202 4.39 4.3s 41 4.34 3.0.rs 1.558l 024 ,^^' :'-:- ) r.558 o 3.83 3.82 426 r.)) I l r07 3.57 3.57 20 339 1.535 1.535 LZ L. J'I 205 3.52 3.5r 18 517 r.531\ o.s.ro i:sai r'532 13 I22 3.39 3.39 16 J.Z5 20 i 2r4 3.1r 1 603 r.525 r.527 r' rL 48 3.10 50 .I0 3oo 3.09 I 4.1.12 1.507 r.s07 o 1.510 20 009 3.00 3.01 15 502 1.486 r.487 7, 1.486 20 027 2.970 2.970 100 ) 01 345 r.468 t.469 10 523 t.466 r.466 12 l.