Synthesis of beryllian sapphirine in the system MgO-BeO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O and comparison with naturally occurring beryllian sapphirine and khmaralite, Part 2: A chemographic study of Be content as a function of P, T, assemblage and FeMg–1exchange
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A. G. Christy
and
E. S. Grew
Abstract
Beryllium is a significant constituent in sapphirine in some metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks, and thus could have a major effect on its stability relationships. Using the stoichiometries of reactions involving sapphirine and associated phases in the MgO-BeO-Al2O3-SiO2 (MBeAS) system in conjunction with molar volume data, we have plotted maps of the sapphirine solid-solution field in both μ-μ and μ-P space, where μ is the chemical potential of an exchange component such as (BeSi)(AlAl)-1. These maps give a pressure sequence of stable MBeAS univariant reactions and divariant assemblages that are consistent with experimental data, e.g., they show how Be stabilizes sapphirine + forsterite, which is rare in nature but readily synthesized over a wide P-T range in the presence of Be. We generate a MBeAS petrogenetic grid for sapphirine-bearing assemblages over the approximate range T = 700-900 °C, P = 0-2.5 GPa, identify divariant and univariant assemblages containing sapphirine with maximum Be, and determine the sense of variation of maximum Be content with P. At lower T, maximum Be occurs at the low-P limit of surinamite stability, ca. 0.5 GPa. At higher T, maximum Be increases with P, following the MBeAS univariant reactions involving (sapphirine + surinamite + orthopyroxene + chrysoberyl + forsterite or spinel).
Natural assemblages containing sapphirine and its Be-rich near-analog khmaralite from the Napier Complex, Enderby Land, East Antarctica formed at higher T (900-1100 °C) than the experiments and in bulk compositions containing substantial Fe. Associated minerals include garnet, sillimanite, quartz, and magnesiotaaffeite-6N'3S (“musgravite”), whereas forsterite is absent and cordierite is a local, late phase. μ(BeSi)(AlAl)-1-μFeMg-1 diagrams show that the stability of magnesiotaaffeite-6N'3S causes the maximally beryllian khmaralite to shift from a magnesian composition in equilibrium with orthopyroxene + surinamite + forsterite + chrysoberyl, as in the MBeAS subsystem, to a more Fe-rich composition associated with garnet + surinamite + magnesiotaaffeite-6N'3S + chrysoberyl. Khmaralite associated with sillimanite + garnet + surinamite + magnesiotaaffeite-6N'3S or chrysoberyl in a Napier Complex pegmatite from Khmara Bay is predicted to be the most Be-rich possible in the presence of sillimanite, whereas the sillimanite + quartz ± orthopyroxene ± garnet associations in quartz granulites requires a sapphirine much lower in both Be and Fe; analyses are roughly in accord with these predictions. The shape of the sapphirine/khmaralite solid-solution field is such that there is a positive correlation between high Be and high Fe2+, a chemographic effect independent of any crystal chemical effects due to the clustering of Fe and Be in the crystal structure of khmaralite.
The diagram for FMBeAS shows that sapphirine + quartz, which is often cited as evidence for ultrahigh temperatures (e.g., ≥ 1040 °C), is stabilized to lower T and higher P than in the corresponding Be-free system. Hence, this minimum T may be valid only in rocks with relatively abundant sapphirine and/or very low bulk Be content so that what Be is present in the system is not concentrated in sapphirine.
© 2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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- Synthesis of beryllian sapphirine in the system MgO-BeO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O and comparison with naturally occurring beryllian sapphirine and khmaralite, Part 2: A chemographic study of Be content as a function of P, T, assemblage and FeMg–1exchange
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- Sodalite: High-temperature structures obtained from synchrotron radiation and Rietveld refinements
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Articles in the same Issue
- Composition and I4/m-P42/n phase transition in scapolite solid solutions
- Synthesis and characterization of K2Ca5(SO4)6·H2O, the equivalent of görgeyite, a rare evaporite mineral
- Phase relations in the system Fe-FeSi at 21 GPa
- The speciation of dissolved H2O in dacitic melt
- Nucleation and growth kinetics of the α-β transformation in Mg2SiO4determined by in situ synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction
- Experimental determination of siderite stability and application to Martian Meteorite ALH84001
- Determination of the molar absorption coefficient for the infrared absorption band of CO2in rhyolitic glasses
- Crystallographic properties of the calcium phosphate mineral, brushite, by means of First Principles calculations
- The crystal structure of jonesite, Ba2(K,Na)[Ti2(Si5Al)O18(H2O)](H2O)n: A first example of titanosilicate with porous double layers
- Crystal-chemistry of talc: A near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy study
- Synthesis of beryllian sapphirine in the system MgO-BeO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O and comparison with naturally occurring beryllian sapphirine and khmaralite, Part 2: A chemographic study of Be content as a function of P, T, assemblage and FeMg–1exchange
- Spriggite, Pb3[(UO2)6O8(OH)2](H2O)3, a new mineral with β-U3O8–type sheets: Description and crystal structure
- Sieve-textured plagioclase in dacitic magma: Interference imaging results
- Single crystal raman spectroscopy of cerussite
- Sodalite: High-temperature structures obtained from synchrotron radiation and Rietveld refinements
- The structure of metahohmannite, Fe3+2[O(SO4)2]⋅4H2O, by in situ synchrotron powder diffraction
- High-pressure synchrotron X-ray diffraction study of spessartine and uvarovite: A comparison between different equation of state models
- Quantum calculations of the electronic structure and NMR quadrupolar interaction parameters for tugtupite
- Identification of pyrite valence band contributions using synchrotron-excited X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
- Micro-Raman studies of gypsum in the temperature range between 9 K and 373 K
- A new rare earth disilicate (REE2Si2O7; REE = Dy, Tm, Lu; type-L): Evidence for nonquenchable 10 GPa polymorph with silicon in fivefold trigonal bipyramidal coordination?
- Structural variations in the brownmillerite series Ca2(Fe2–xAlx)O5: Single-crystal X-ray diffraction at 25 °C and high-temperature X-ray powder diffraction (25 °C ≤ T ≤ 1000 °C)
- Peculiarity and defect structure of the natural and synthetic zeolite mordenite: A single-crystal X-ray study
- Model independent phase equilibrium constraints on the ferrosilite activity in the binary Fe-Mg orthopyroxene solid solution
- Microstructural study of synthetic sintered diamond and comparison with carbonado, a natural polycrystalline diamond
- Structural and chemical response to varying [4]B content in zoned Fe-bearing olenite from Koralpe, Austria
- A new dense silica polymorph: A possible link between tetrahedrally and octahedrally coordinated silica
- Epitaxial relationships of clinopyroxene-hosted magnetite determined using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique
