Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization.
Torbernite, also known as chalcolite, is a relatively common mineral with the chemical formula Cu[(UO2)(PO4)]2(H2O)12. It is a radioactive, hydrated green copper uranyl phosphate, found in granites and other uranium-bearing deposits as a secondary mineral. The chemical formula of torbernite is similar to that of autunite in which a Cu2+ cation replaces a Ca2+ cation. Torbernite tends to dehydrate to metatorbernite with the sum formula Cu[(UO2)(PO4)]2(H2O)8.
Austinite is a member of the adelite-descloizite group, adelite subgroup, the zinc (Zn) end member of the copper-Zn series with conichalcite. It is the zinc analogue of cobaltaustinite and nickelaustinite. At one time “brickerite” was thought to be a different species, but it is now considered to be identical to austinite. Austinite is named in honour of Austin Flint Rogers (1877–1957), American mineralogist from Stanford University, California, US.
The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, and the arts. It encourages fundamental research about natural materials; supports the teaching of mineralogical concepts and procedures to students of mineralogy and related arts and sciences; and attempts to raise the scientific literacy of society with respect to issues involving mineralogy. The Society encourages the general preservation of mineral collections, displays, mineral localities, type minerals and scientific data. MSA represents the United States with regard to the science of mineralogy in any international context. The Society was incorporated in 1937 and approved as a nonprofit organization in 1959.
Frank Christopher Hawthorne is an English-born Canadian mineralogist, crystallographer and spectroscopist. He works at the University of Manitoba and is currently distinguished professor emeritus. By combining graph theory, bond-valence theory and the moments approach to the electronic energy density of solids he has developed bond topology as a rigorous approach to understanding the atomic arrangements, chemical compositions and paragenesis of complex oxide and oxysalt minerals.
Seamanite, named for discoverer Arthur E. Seaman, is a rare manganese boron phosphate mineral with formula Mn3[B(OH)4](PO4)(OH)2. The yellow to pink mineral occurs as small, needle-shaped crystals. It was first discovered in 1917 from a mine in Iron County, Michigan, United States and identified in 1930. As of 2012, seamanite is known from four sites in Michigan and South Australia.
A crystallographic database is a database specifically designed to store information about the structure of molecules and crystals. Crystals are solids having, in all three dimensions of space, a regularly repeating arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules. They are characterized by symmetry, morphology, and directionally dependent physical properties. A crystal structure describes the arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystal..
Pyroxmangite has the general chemical formula of MnSiO3. It is the high-pressure, low-temperature dimorph of rhodonite.
Robert Miller Hazen is an American mineralogist and astrobiologist. He is a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory and Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George Mason University, in the United States. Hazen is the Executive Director of the Deep Carbon Observatory.
Vesselina Vassileva Breskovska was a 20th-century Bulgarian geologist, mineralogist and crystallographer.
Djerfisherite is an alkali copper–iron sulfide mineral and a member of the djerfisherite group.
Georgius Agricola is considered the 'father of mineralogy'. Nicolas Steno founded the stratigraphy, the geology characterizes the rocks in each layer and the mineralogy characterizes the minerals in each rock. The chemical elements were discovered in identified minerals and with the help of the identified elements the mineral crystal structure could be described. One milestone was the discovery of the geometrical law of crystallization by René Just Haüy, a further development of the work by Nicolas Steno and Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l'Isle. Important contributions came from some Saxon "Bergraths"/ Freiberg Mining Academy: Johann F. Henckel, Abraham Gottlob Werner and his students. Other milestones were the notion that metals are elements too and the periodic table of the elements by Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. The overview of the organic bonds by Kekulé was necessary to understand the silicates, first refinements described by Bragg and Machatschki; and it was only possibly to understand a crystal structure with Dalton's atomic theory, the notion of atomic orbital and Goldschmidt's explanations. Specific gravity, streak and X-ray powder diffraction are quite specific for a Nickel-Strunz identifier. Nowadays, non-destructive electron microprobe analysis is used to get the empirical formula of a mineral. Finally, the International Zeolite Association (IZA) took care of the zeolite frameworks.
Zeitschrift für Kristallographie – Crystalline Materials is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published in English. The journal publishes theoretical and experimental studies in crystallography of both organic and inorganic substances. The editor-in-chief of the journal is Rainer Pöttgen from the University of Münster. The journal was founded in 1877 under the title Zeitschrift für Krystallographie und Mineralogie by crystallographer and mineralogist Paul Heinrich von Groth, who served as the editor for 44 years. It has used several titles over its history, with the present title having been adopted in 2010. The journal is indexed in a variety of databases and has a 2020 impact factor of 1.616.
Abellaite is a hydrous carbonate mineral discovered in the abandoned Eureka uranium mine in the village of Torre de Capdella (Lleida province), Catalonia, Spain. The ideal chemical formula of abellaite is NaPb2(CO3)2(OH). It is named in honor of Joan Abella i Creus, a Catalan gemmologist who has long studied minerals from the Eureka mine and first found abellaite in the mine. A team composed, among others, by Jordi Ibáñez-Insa from the Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera (CSIC) and by Joan Viñals and Xavier Llovet from the University of Barcelona, identified and characterized the mineral’s structure and chemical composition.
Michael Fleischer was an American chemist and mineralogist. He worked as a geochemist with the U.S. Geological Survey from 1939 to 1978. He published a huge number of chemical abstracts and reviews of proposed mineral names, and is known for his authoritative Glossary of Mineral Species, first published in 1971.
Antigorite is a lamellated, monoclinic mineral in the phyllosilicate serpentine subgroup with the ideal chemical formula of (Mg,Fe2+)3Si2O5(OH)4. It is the high-pressure polymorph of serpentine and is commonly found in metamorphosed serpentinites. Antigorite, and its serpentine polymorphs, play an important role in subduction zone dynamics due to their relative weakness and high weight percent of water (up to 13 weight % H2O). It is named after its type locality, the Geisspfad serpentinite, Valle Antigorio in the border region of Italy/Switzerland and is commonly used as a gemstone in jewelry and carvings.
Ross John Angel is an internationally recognized researcher in mineralogy, expert in crystallography and elastic properties of geological materials and key industrial materials, which he studies with experimental and analytical approaches. He is the lead author or co-author of over 240 articles in international scientific journals, he received the Dana Medal from the Mineralogical Society of America in 2011 and is currently a director of research at the Institute of Geosciences and Geo-resources of the National Research Council (Italy).
Robert Day Shannon is a retired research chemist formerly at DuPont de Nemours, Inc.
Charles Thompson Prewitt was an American mineralogist and solid state chemist known for his work on structural chemistry of minerals and high-pressure chemistry.
John Walter Gruner was a German-born American mineralogist, crystallographer, and geologist. He scientifically described and named two minerals: minnesotaite (1944) and groutite (1945).
