Loveringite

• IMA 1977-023

Loveringit is a very rarely occurring mineral from the mineral class of oxides and hydroxides. It crystallizes in the trigonal crystal system, with the chemical composition (Ca, Ce) (Ti, Fe, Cr, Mg) 21O38 forming anherale, sometimes acicular crystals up to 120 microns size, and other inclusions in minerals of black color.

Etymology and history

The mineral was first found in 1978 by Bryan M. Gatehouse, Ian E. Grey, Ian H. Campbell and Patrick Kelly in the Jimberlana intrusion at Norseman in Western Australia ( Australia). They named it after the Australian geochemistry professor John Francis Lovering.

Classification

In the old ( 8th edition ) and new classification of minerals according to Strunz ( 9th edition ) is one of the Loveringit each case together with Cleusonit, Crichtonit, Davidit - (Ce), Davidit - (La), Davidit - (Y), Dessauit - (Y), Gramaccioliit - (Y), Landauit, Lindsleyit, Mathiasit and Senait to the Department of oxides with a ratio of metal to oxygen of 2:3. The new Strunz'sche Mineral classification divided here, however, precisely according to the size of the cations involved, and therefore the mineral is now in accordance with the subdivision "With large and medium-sized cations ".

The commonly used in English-speaking classification of minerals according to Dana assigns the Loveringit with Cleusonit and other minerals in the Crichtonit group, a subgroup of the complex oxides of niobium, tantalum and titanium.

Education and Locations

Loveringit crystallized at the magmatic differentiation from late in pyroxene and olivine. It's by locality associated with quartz, K-feldspar, phlogopite, enstatite, baddeleyite, apatite, zircon, sphene, rutile, ilmenite and chromite or rutile, pseudo-brookite, ilmenite, Zirkonolith, spinel, pargasite and phlogopite.

There are currently (as of November 2010) of the seven localities Loveringits known. In addition to the type locality Loveringit was in Laouni in the Ahaggar (Algeria), found in Hüttwinkl valley near Rauris in Austria, on the Kerguelen, Bracco in Italy, the Chibinen in Russia and Chiradzi in Zimbabwe.

Crystal structure

Loveringit crystallizes in the trigonal crystal system in the space group R3 ( Raumgruppen-Nr. 148) with the lattice parameters a = 10.337 Å and c = 20.667 Å and three formula units per unit cell. It is isostructural with Senait and Crichtonit.