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• Mineral systems, their types and distribution in nature. I. Khibiny, Lovozero and the Mont Saint-Hilaire

Mineral systems, their types and distribution in nature. I. Khibiny, Lovozero and the Mont Saint-Hilaire

Krivovichev V. G., Charykova M. V.

Zapiski RMO (Proceedings of the Russian Mineralogical Society). 2015. V. 144. N 4. P. 1-12

Full text is available

Language: Russian

Abstract

By sets of essential, species-defining chemical elements in minerals, n-componential mineral systems are distinguished (with n = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) for all known, up to the year 2014, mineral species (4962). It has been found that in minerals 70 chemical elements are essential, species-defining constituents which are distributed between mineral systems as follows: 1 (29), 2 (62), 3 (68), 4 (61), 5 (61), 6 (55), 7 (49), 8 (38), 9 (28), and 10 (19). The number of mineral species was specified, in which the certain chemical elements is the principal, species-defining constituent. Number of minerals of different chemical elements were calculated (number of mineral species indicated in parentheses): oxygen (4041), hydrogen (2755), silicon (1448), calcium (1139), sulfur (1025), aluminum (960), iron (917), sodium (914), Cu (616), phosphorus (580), arsenic (575), magnesium (550), etc. It has been revealed that distribution of the majority of species-defining elements by mineral systems corresponds to the normal distribution. Comparative analysis of the mineral species distribution by various systems was carried out for highly alkaline massifs (Khibiny and Lovozero at Kola Peninsula, Russia, and Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, Canada), as well as the comparison of these objects by character of the species-defining elements distribution. It was established that among principal species-defining elements Si, Na, K, C, F, Ti, Ce, Zr, Nb, Sr and Th are «superfluous» — present in minerals of these massifs in excessive amounts, and Cu, Pb, CI, B, Te, Ag, Ni and Be belong there to the «scarce» elements.

Key words: mineral species, crystal-chemical formula, species-defining constituent, n-component mineral systems, «thermo-chemical» sequence of elements, alkaline massif.