Abstract
Reflectance spectroscopy in the visible to short-wave infrared regions (500 to 2500 nm) was carried out using natural samples of the rare earth element (REE) phosphate minerals monazite, xenotime, and britholite. Samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and electron microprobe analysis. Absorption band positions were recorded with their probable origins, and spectral variability among the samples is discussed. Spectral features of these minerals are driven primarily by 4f-4f intraconfigurational electronic transitions of trivalent lanthanides. The distinct REE distributions of monazite, xenotime, and britholite drive their bulk spectral patterns, which in turn are sufficiently distinct to enable spectral classification. Spectral variability of some specific REE-related absorptions are interpreted to be driven by differences of the co-ordination polyhedra for the lanthanide cations between the crystal structures. Spectra of these minerals were also compared against carbonatite-hosted REE bearing fluorapatite. The work presented here strengthens the growing foundation for the interpretation of reflectance spectra of these REE phosphate minerals and enables exploitation of the observed features by the remote sensing community for detection, identification, and quantification of REE phosphate minerals. This is especially relevant for hyperspectral imaging spectroscopy with high spatial resolution, where the spectral response of a pixel becomes increasingly dominated by mineralogy.
Acknowledgments
Tony Mariano and Michel Picard (Canadian Museum of Nature) are thanked for their help with acquiring samples, and Jilu Feng and Steve Creighton for their help with data collection. Financial support is acknowledged from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. T.C. Chudy is thanked for his help and insight with the fluorapatite-bearing Fir carbonatite sample. The reviewers provided constructive reviews that improved the quality and clarity of this manuscript.
References cited
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- Research Article
- Temporal histories of Cordilleran continental arcs: testing models for magmatic episodicity
- Chemistry and Mineralogy of Earth’s Mantle
- Graphite-diamond relations in mantle rocks: Evidence from an eclogitic xenolith from the Udachnaya kimberlite (Siberian Craton)
- Special Collection: From Magmas to Ore Deposits
- Association of cumulus apatite with compositionally unusual olivine and plagioclase in the Taihe Fe-Ti oxide ore-bearing layered mafic-ultramafic intrusion: Petrogenetic significance and implications for ore genesis
- Special collection: perspectives on origins and evolution of crustal magmas
- Repeated, multiscale, magmatic erosion and recycling in an upper-crustal pluton: implications for magma chamber dynamics and magma volume estimates
- Fluids in the Crust
- A new experimental approach to study fluid–rock equilibria at the slab-mantle interface based on the synthetic fluid inclusion technique
- Special collection: mechanisms, rates, and timescales of geochemical transport processes in the crust and mantle
- Fe-Mg interdiffusion in orthopyroxene
- Special Collection: Rates and Depths of Magma Ascent on Earth
- Error sources in single-clinopyroxene thermobarometry and a mantle geotherm for the Novinka kimberlite, Yakutia
- Water in nominally hydrous and anhydrous minerals
- Experimental hydration of natural volcanic clinopyroxene phenocrysts under hydrothermal pressures (0.5–3 kbar)
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