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New Mineral Names^*

John L. Jambor^1,, Edward S. Grew² and Andrew C. Roberts²

¹ Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada
² Department of Geology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 0446-5711, U.S.A.
³ Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa K1A OE8, Canada

Correspondence: E-mail: JLJambor@aol.com

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

AURIVILLIUSITE^*

A.C. Roberts, J.A.R. Stirling, A.J. Criddle, G.E. Dunning, J. Spratt (2004) Aurivilliusite, Hg²⁺Hg¹⁺OI, a new mineral species from the Clear Creek claim, San Benito County, California, USA. Mineral. Mag., 68, 241–245.

Electron microprobe analysis gave HgO 40.10, Hg₂O 38.62, I 22.76, Br 0.22, Cl 0.06, O I,Br,Cl 1.46, sum 100.30 wt%, corresponding to Hg²⁺_1.00Hg¹⁺_1.00O_1.01(I_0.97Br_0.01Cl_0.01)_0.99 for O +I + Br + Cl = 2 and with Hg²⁺ and Hg¹⁺ partitioned in accordance with the synthetic analog. The mineral occurs as irregular, patchy coatings, each up to 0.5 mm, and with individual grains up to 200 µm in length, showing {100}. Dark gray-black color, metallic luster, opaque, brittle, dark red-brown streak, uneven fracture, {100} cleavage, nonfluorescent, H uncertain (<5), D_calc = 8.96 g/cm³ for the empirical formula and Z = 8. Similar to cinnabar in reflected light, extremely light-sensitive, twinned, average n = 2.35–2.38, no internal reflection but red highlights gradually appear and coalesce. Single-crystal X-ray study indicated monoclinic symmetry, space group C2/c (synthetic analog); a = 17.580(6), b = 6.979(1), c = 6.693(3) Å, ß = 101.71(4)° as refined from a Debye-Scherrer powder pattern (114 mm, CuK radiation) with strongest lines of 8.547(70,200), 3.275(100,002), 2.993(80,21), and 2.873(80,600).

The mineral, which is chemically the I-dominant analog of terlinguaite but is not isostructural with it, is associated with an undefined Hg mineral, native mercury, cinnabar, and edgarbaileyite that occur on a quartz veinlet in magnesite-bearing serpentine from a prospect pit near the former Clear Creek mercury mine, San Benito County, California. The new mineral name is for Karin Aurivillius (1920–1982) of the University of Lund, Sweden, who synthesized and determined the crystal structures of many Hg compounds. Type material is in the Systematic Reference Series housed at the Geological Survey . . . [Full Text of this Article]