A Crystal.Chemical Investigation of Alpine Gadolinite 135
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LN Canadian Mineralogist Vol. 30, pp. 1n-136 (1993) A CRYSTAL.CHEMICALINVESTIGATION OFALPINE GADOLINITE FRANCESCODEMARTIN Istinto di ChimicaStrumtristica Inorganica" Universit degli Studi, Via G. Venezian21, I-20133 Milan' Italy TULLIOPILATI CentroCNR per Io Studiodelle Relazioni fra Strunurae ReattivitChimica, via Golgi 19,I-20133 Milan' Italy VALERIADIELLA Centro CNRdi Sndio per la Stratigrafia e Petrografiadelle AIpi Centrali, via Bonicelli 23, I-20133Milan' Italy PAOLO GENTILE AND CARLO M. GRAMACCIOLI Dipanimentodi ScienzedellaTerra, Ilniversit degli Studi,via Bonicelli 23, I-20133Milnn' Italy ABSTRACI Gadolinite-(Y) specimensfrom variouslocalities in the Alps havebeen examined by electronmicroprobe and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. tn generat,dysprosium is the most abundantrare-earth, although a few samplescontain approximately equal ulnount,of Dy undYb-,andin oneinstance, Gdpredominates.Incontrasttomanynon-Alpineoccunences, mostof these specimens show only lirnited amountsof the lighter REE.There is an almostconstant presence of calcium (up to 4 wt7o.CaO' and.possibly twice thai amountfor morequestiorible samples;;iron is often markedlydeficient with respectto the tleqretlcal formula, and in ar leastone case (Glogstafelberg), the materialshould more properly be ialled hingganite-(Y)(4.0 wrToFeO). In somespecimens, a silnificant substituiionof S fJi Be (up to about4 .Z wtUoUrOll canbededuced-from crystal-structure data, on the basisof linear inteipolation of the measuredBe-O''6ond lengfhswith reip".t to other gadolinite-groupminerals. This substitutionis more exteisive for specimenshigh in Ca and low in Fe, and which thereforegrade toward datolite. No evidencefor replacementof Si by B hasbeen iound. Minor amountsof thorium (up to 0.4 wtToThO2)commonly are present' and uranium(0.3 wtVoUO) was found in one specimen.As for xenotimeand monazite,the behaviorbf Y is not uniquely determinedby the ionic radius,some specimensbeing especiallyemiched in this elementwith respectto the middle-heavyrare earths(up to 4 I .5 wt%oY 2O) . Keywords:gadolinite, hingganite,rare earths,yttrium, beryllium, boron, pegmatite,fissure, Alps, crystal-structureanalysis' electron-microprobeanalysis. SOMMAIRE Nous avonscaract6ris6 plusieurs fchantillons de gadolinite-(Y)provenant de localit6salpines par microsondedlectronique et plus desterres rares, quoique certains par diffraction X sur cristal unique.C'est en g6n6ralle dysprosiumqui est la lbol9anre 6chantillonscontiennent une proporrion 6quiialente OeOy et de Yb, et quoique le Gd pr6dominedals y1-{es 6chantillons' Contrairementi plusieurs provenantd'ailleun, li plupart desdchantillons ne.contiennent que de faibles quantit6sdes terresiares l6gdris. p calcium"*..pi". est pidsent dans presque tous leicas, en quantitdsallantjusqu'd 4Vode CaO, etpouvantatteindre le doublede ceci dans certains 6chantillons moins bien caract6ris6s. Le fei estfortement ddfcitair,e pqq rypport ela formuleid6ale; dffi"^ffi;i.s |1n6iei"L$'i"1i;;6;F;ifiil;a;64;rii6fre o€G appetonineganite-ffi @.MoF{'par pids). Danscerains 6chanrillons,une proponion importante du Be est remptac6e par le B (usqu'l environ4.2Vo deB2O3par poids), d'aprbs les donn6es obtenuessur la structurecrlstaitine de cetteespbce, d la lumibre d'une interpolationdes longueurs Be-O mesur6espour certains pour de nos &hantillons, par rappor A d'autres min6rauxdu groupede la gadolinite.Cette substitutionest plus r6pandrre les echantillonsriches en Ca et pauwesen Fe, et donc ceux qui montrentune tendancevers la compositionde la datolite.Nous ne trouvonsaucun indice d'un remplacementdu Si par le B. De faibles quanritdsde Th (usqu'i 0.47ode ThO2par poids) sont assez le courantes,et1.3vo de UO2 esipr6sentdans un de nos 6chantillons.Comme dans le cas du x6notimeet de la monazite, en comportementde I'yttrium ne semblepas ddpendre uniquement du rayonionique; certains 6chantillons sont fonement enrichis Y par rapportaux terres fares moyennes et lourdescusqu'h 41.57o YzO:). (rraduit parla R6daction) Mots-cl6s:gadolinite, terres rares, ynrium, b6ryllium, bore,pegmatite granitique, fissure, Alpes, 6bauche de la structurecristalline' analysei la microsonde6lectronique. Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/canmin/article-pdf/31/1/127/3435420/127.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 t28 THE CANADIAN MINERALOGIST INTRODUcnoN othertypes of substitutionmay not be excludeda priort. Among these,for instance,the presenceof additional Whereasgadolinite has beenknown for nearly two beryllium replacingsilicon hasbeen postulated by some centuries,its discoveryas a fissuremineral in theAlpine authors,on the groundsof infrared absorptionspectra reglon took placemore recently(parker et at. li40). (Aleksandrovaet al. 1966); similarly, the presenceof Becauseof its geologically"young,, age, gadolinite four OH groupssubstituting for SiOa,as in hydrogarneq from the Alps is very different from that of most other is anotherpossibility; furthermore,significant amounts occurences;it commonly is referredto as .,noble,' ofP and F [in view ofthe isostructuralrelationship to gadolinite,as the crystalsare sharp and transparent, their herderiteCaBePOa@,Ott) and its groupl or of Bi [asin color is generallypale greenor blue-green,reminiscent minasgeraisite(Y,Bi)2CaBqSirOlsl also may be pre- of beryl or somebluish varietiesof titanite, with which sent. suchcrystals of gadolinitemay easilybe confused. As is the case for monaziteand xenotime"there are CHEMICAL ANALYSIS also occurrencesin granitic pegmatites.Most of these havebeen discovered in Val Yigezzo(Ossola) (Mattioli 1977, 1978, Turconi 1982, Albertini 1988); in the Electron-microprobeanalyses were performed on eastemAlps, occurences are known at the so-called polishedgrain-mounts, using the wavelength-dispersion ARL-SEMQ instrument "Plattenbri,iche''in the Rauris Valley (Meixner 1976) of the Italian National Re- searchCouncil (C.N.R.) and in the Markogel pegmatite near Villach (G. at the Centrodi Studi per la Niedermayr,pers. comm., 1990). Stratigrafiae la Petrografiadelle Alpi Centrali,Milan. Most of the scientificwork on Alpine gadolinitehas To determinethe contentof Si, Ca,Fe andU, a series been concernedwith its mere identification. In a few ofnaturaland synthetic standards was employed. Forthe cases,optical and morphological data and X-ray powder rare earths, Y and Th, synthetic lithium metaborate glasses patternsare given; however, no structurerefinement has were preparedas specifiedin our contributions been carried out so far, and accuratevalues for the on Alpine monaziteand xenotime (Mannucci et al. 1986, unit-cell parametersare lacking in the literature.Simi- Demarttnet al. l99l a,b). Theaccelerating potential was larly, recentresults of quantitativechemical analyses, 20 kV, the samplecurrent (on brass)0.01 pA, andthe including the distribution of the rare-earthelemenrs MAGIC IV correctionprocedure was applied(Colby (REQ, ue not available. 1968, with modifications).In all the sampleshere The unusualperfection and "freshness"of the crys- examined,the concentrationsof Tb, Ho, Mg, Sc,P, S, tals, which are almost unique in nature,make th;m Sr, 84 Na, F, andAl arebelow the limits of detectionof ideally suitedfor chemicalanalysis and a studyby X-ray our instrument(about 0.1 wt%o);forTmand Lu, owing diffraction. Advanced metamictizationand leaching to interferencefrom Dy, the limit is higher (about 0.4 accompaniedby oxidation, commonly observedin wtVo). non-Alpinegadolinite, might leadto grosslyerroneous Besidesthe interferencesamong the REd theanalyti- conclusionsabout the crystalchemistry of this mineral. cal line of dysprosium@yfct) is too closeto a line of For instance,a recentunpublished investigation carried iron (FeKa), so that on oneside the backgroundwas too out by our group on the glassy core of crystals from high, leadingto unacceptablylow valuesfor the DyrO. Baveno(which are much older than Alpine specimens, content. This interferencehas been accountedfor by thoughfound in the samevicinity) showedthat thereis measuringthe background ofDylcr on oneside only. an almost completeseries of compositionsbetween Our data pertain to material from fwelve localities "true" gadoliniteand an amorphousmass of hvdrated (Table 1). The variation in oxide percentagesreported iron oxideand silica. includesboth statisticaluncertainty in countingand Also, crystallographicdata of good quality are rare actual compositionalvariation in the sample,since for on this species(Miyawaki et al. 1984).They can be most specimensthe reportedvalues are the averageof importantin view ofthe existenceofextensive solid-so- sevenanalyses, performed on different points. For the lution with other minerals of the same goup, e.g. specimensfrom Hopffeldbodenand Triolet, owing to hingganite (Y,Yb)2BqSi2O8(OH)2(Semenov er a/. lack of homogeneityof the samplesand also to the 1963,Voloshin et al. 1983,Yakubovich et al. 1983\or impossibilityofrepeating the measurements in optimum even datolire CaBSiO4(OH), calcium-gadolinite, conditions,the resultsare less accurate than for theother homilite Ca2FeBrSi2O,o(Miyawaki et al. 1985),etc. specimens.For example, the Y contentis surelytoo high, Thesesolid solutions commonly involve compositional and this also explainsthe unusuallyhigh value for the variationinvolving light elementssuch as Be or B, and MelSi ratio for the specimenfrom Hopffeldboden(see preselceof water.For this reason,electron-micronrobe below). data must be supplementedby other data in order to Unfortunately,t}re amounts of somelighter elements establishthe chemicalcomposition