EPIDOTE from HAWLEYVILLE, CONNECTICUT* Davrs M. Leenau, Department Oj Geology,Columbia Unioers.I.Ty, New York, L{
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EPIDOTE FROM HAWLEYVILLE, CONNECTICUT* Davrs M. Leenau, Department oJ Geology,Columbia Unioers.i.ty, New York, l{. Y . Agsrnacr The Hawleyville, Conn. epidote occurs in a prochlorite-apatite-orthoclase pegmatite along nearly horizontal fracture planes of a medium- to coarse-grained diorite. The occur- rence is unusual since the epidote is colorless to yellow brown with a radiating prismatic habit. Optical and r-ray data are presented and the material is compared with the struc- turally and chemically similar zoisite and clinozoisite, The distinguishing features of the members of the epidote group are reviewed. ft is suggested that the mineral name ,,epidote" be restricted to material which is optically negative. fndices of refraction are presented for stilbite which appear to represent a high Ca variety. INrnooucrtom This locality was first brought to the writer's attention in an article by Wm. Agar and Earl H. Emendorfer on the manganiferousprochlorite at Hawleyville, Conn. (Agar and Emendorfer, t937). After visiting the locality in connection with researchon the chlorite minerals, a colorlessto yellow brown radiating mineral was found closely associated with the prochlorite. Upon investigation, this mineral has been identified as epidote, although it lacks the characteristicpistachio greencolor normally associatedwith epidote. I express my sincere appreciation to Professors Paul F. Kerr and Ralph J. Holmes of Columbia University for their helpful criticism of this paper. LocarroN Hawleyville, Conn., is east of Danbury, Conn., on route 25 a few miles north of the junction of routes 6 and 25 (Fig. 1). The sampleswere taken from an east-west trending railroad cut one third of a mile west of Hawleyville near the northwest border of the township of Newton, Conn. The railroad cut may be reached by taking the dirt road marked Sky Ridge which runs in a westerly direction from route 25 south of Hawley- ville. The Sky Ridge road is shown as a dotted line in Fig. 1. Goor,ocv The Brook.field,Diorite The prominent outcrop through which the New York and New Eng- land Railroad (a branch track also used by the New York, New Haven and Hartford R.R.) has made a deep cut along Sky Ridge near Hawley- * Awarded the George Frederick Kunz Prize by the New York Mineralogical Club, 1956. 62 N.Y. I CON N. Broohfhld a €roolficld Ccnlrt oHorhYvlllo oo['rou^ - . Ncwlon Bcfhcl Brldgrport a Norwoll Whil. a Roinc 9 q rq___19 oohf ie ld C e nler 25 I s dt Hook lot2 45 Milcr Frc. 1. Location of Ilawleyville epidote. 64 DAVIS M. LAPHAM ville is composedof medium- to coarse-graineddiorite. Megascopically it is even textured and composedof equant grains of plagiocrase,white orthoclase,and biotite. The white orthoclase grades into pink orthoclase near the epidote-chlorite veins to be described later. rn thin section it may be seenthat this pink color is the result of clouding by small flakes of hematite. A thin section study of the Brookfield diorite reveared the following approximate composition: 25/6 to 3I/sbiotite 25/s microcline 25/s pla$oclase 57o AbsAnt l5To AbeAr'z 57oAbTAns rT/6 orthocrase 8/6 to 13/6 quartz, ilmenit e, zircon, and apatite. The quartz doesnot exceed5To. The ratio of alkali ferdspar to pragiocrase is about 5:3 and the ratio of microclineto orthoclaseis about 3:2. The absenceof hornblende is very striking both in hand specimen and thin section, emphasizing the similarity between the Brookfield diorite and a typical monzonite. There are at least three prominent fracture systems which have been important in localizing various types of pegmatites. Although their occurrencesare somewhat irregular, there is a dominant system which dips approximately 15 degreesto the west and strikes northwest. Another conspicuousseries of fractures dips about 15 degrees to the east and strikes southeast. A third nearly vertical system strikes north-south, transecting the two nearly horizontal sets of fractures. rt is these three systems which appear to have localized the later pegmatitic intrusions (Fig. 2). on the south wall of the cut about 200 feet from the overpassand four feet above the railroad tracks, there is a narrow band of schistoserock which has a bulk composition similar to the composition of the Brook- field diorite. This band, four to six inches wide, parallels the dominant westward dipping fracture system, but pinches out into normal diorite eastward at its upper end (Fig. 2). The mica in the schistoseband appears to be a light brown phlogopite or muscovite. The loosely layered char- acter of this band has made it more susceptibleto both reolacement and weathering. The Pegmatites Although there are three distinct types of pegmatites intrusive into the diorite, two of thesecontain only feldspar crystals and.massive quartz EPIDOTE FROM HAWLEYVILLE, CONNECTICUT 65 with muscovite crystals along the pegmatite border. The third type is a complex feldspar-quartz pegmatite paralleling the two nearly horizontal fracture systems. The pink feldspar-epidote-chloritebearing soiutions evidently followed vertical fractures until they intersected the westward dipping schistose band. This band then offered an easy path for the solutions so that they replacedthe band laterally and down the dip. In addition to this schistose FRACTURES,PEGMAT1TES AND ALTERATION SOUTH WALL OF CUT tT--l Ltl Mediumto coorse diorite Schistosedioriticbond o-z' f-:-t l\"1 Bond replocedby epidole pegmotite mEorren quorlz pegmotite Limits of o ltered diorite Frc.2 band, the normal diorite has beenaltered in the immediate vicinity of the pegmatite. This alteration consists primarily of hematite-clouded pink orthoclase feldspar with minor amounts of plagioclase and biotite and forms a gradational transition zone between the pink orthoclase crystals bordering the pegmatite and the normal diorite. The extent of this replacement halo does not exceed two feet beyond the epidote-chlorite pegmatite center. A few feet to the east there is another feldspar-epidote-chlorite peg- matite following an eastward dipping fracture system so that these two oppositely dipping pegmatites intersect about five feet above the base of the rock cut. There is no visible feeder for this second pegmatite (Fig. 2). 66 DAVIS M. LAPHAM GeologicSequence The following is a probable recapitulation of the sequenceof events: 1. Intrusion of a diorite body which cooled rather slowly yielding a medium to coarse texture. 2. Fracturing and some slippage creating faults and a weak zone of schistose structure; -not necessarily contemporaneously. 3. Influx of feldspar-epidote-chlorite solutions foilowing vertical frctures but crystal- lizing preferably along the nearly horizontal fracture systems with notable replace- ment of the orthoclase and microcline by clouded pink orthoclase. 4. Intrusion of nearly barren quartz pegmatites in one or more stages, 5. Deposition of stilbite along vertical fractures. MrNrnelocv The Pegmatites The center of the feldspar-epidote-chlorite pegmatites contains straw yellow to nearly colorlessradiating crystals of epidote, yellow to color- less crystals of apatite, and a few elongated milky quartz crystals in a matrix of deep green, nearly cryptocrystalline prochlorite. According to Agar and Emendorfer (1937) the prochlorite contains a small amount of manganese. The borders of these pegmatites usually consist of brown to greenish muscovite crystals, often in very compact books. They form along the margin of the pegmatite between the epidote-chlorite center and the pink orthoclase alteration rim. The pink orthoclase crystals are un- twinned both megascopically and microscopically. As a final phaseof the mineralization, unrelated to the diorite intrusive and subsequent pegmatite formation, thin coatings of radiating white stilbite crystals formed along many of the vertical fractures. The indices of refraction usually given for stilbite (Larsen and Ber- man, 1934)are d:1.494, P:1.498, and ?:1.500. However,the indices determined for the Hawleyville material are d.:1.485+ .0O2,B:t.490 + .002,and 7: I.493+.002.* The index liquids usedwere checkedon an Abbe refractometer using a sodium light source. All the other optical properties coincide with the optical properties for stilbite (Larsen and Berman, 1934). As supporting identification, an rc-ray powder photo- graph was made with a Debye-Scherrer camera using filtered Cu radia- tion. The pattern of the Hawleyville stilbite matches the values given in the A.S.T.M. Index for stilbite from Palm Grove, Victoria Falls, Zambesi River, N. Rhodesia and it also matches the pattern of stilbite from Poonach, India, in the mineralogy laboratory referencefiles at Co- lumbia University. Consequently the Hawleyville material may be iden- x Similar to the low indices of the high Ca-variety, stellarite; Neuman, Norges Geol. Unilasokelse, No. 166, 108-113 (1944); Pabst, Min. Mag.,25,27L (1939). EPIDOTE FROM HAWLEVVILLE, CONNECTICUT 67 tified as stilbite. From this data it seemsprobable that stilbite may have a range of indices of refraction greater than previously reported. The H awleyville Epidote Ordinarily epidote is pistachio green and occurs in single crystals or parallel groups. This epidote, however, varies from nearly colorless to straw yellow to light green and commonly forms large radiating groups of crystals. Such a deviation marks this as an unusual occurrence and worth investigation. A colorless epidote from Garda in northern Italy may be a similar variety (Lacroix, 1887). No specimenwas available for comparison. Although on first glance these crystals resemble