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Chromium mineral ecology

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Published/Copyright: March 6, 2017
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American Mineralogist
From the journal American Mineralogist Volume 102 Issue 3

Abstract

Minerals containing chromium (Cr) as an essential element display systematic trends in their diversity and distribution. We employ data for 72 approved terrestrial Cr mineral species (http://rruff.info/ima, as of 15 April 2016), representing 4089 mineral species-locality pairs (http://mindat.org and other sources, as of 15 April 2016). We find that Cr-containing mineral species, for which 30% are known at only one locality and more than half are known from three or fewer localities, conform to a Large Number of Rare Events (LNRE) distribution. Our model predicts that at least 100 ± 13 (1σ) Cr minerals exist in Earth’s crust today, indicating that 28 ± 13 (1σ) species have yet to be discovered—a minimum estimate because our model assumes that new minerals will be found only using the same methods as in the past. Numerous additional Cr minerals likely await discovery using micro-analytical methods.

We propose 117 compounds as plausible Cr minerals to be discovered, including 7 oxides, 11 sulfides, 7 silicates, 7 sulfates, and 82 chromates. Depending on their compositions and crystal structures, new Cr minerals are likely to be discovered in various environments, including meteorites, basalt, evaporites, and oxidized Pb ore deposits.

Keywords: Chromium; mineral ecology; new minerals; statistical mineralogy

Acknowledgments

We thank Sergey Krivovichev and one anonymous reviewer for constructive reviews, and Martin Kunz for handling this manuscript. This work was supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Deep Carbon Observatory, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the W.M. Keck Foundation, a private foundation, and the Carnegie Institution for Science for support of mineral evolution and ecology research.

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Received: 2016-6-25
Accepted: 2016-10-26
Published Online: 2017-3-6
Published in Print: 2017-3-1

© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.2138/am-2017-5900
Keywords for this article
Chromium; mineral ecology; new minerals; statistical mineralogy

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Special collection: From magmas to ore deposits
  2. Sulfide-silicate textures in magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide ore deposits: Disseminated and net-textured ores
  3. Special collection: Olivine
  4. Nickel variability in Hawaiian olivine: Evaluating the relative contributions from mantle and crustal processes
  5. Special collection: Water in nominally hydrous and anhydrous minerals
  6. Hydrogen incorporation mechanisms in forsterite: New insights from 1H and 29Si NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculation
  7. Special collection: Water in nominally hydrous and anhydrous minerals
  8. New SIMS reference materials for measuring water in upper mantle minerals
  9. Special collection: Apatite: A common mineral, uncommonly versatile
  10. Co-variability of S6+, S4+, and S2− in apatite as a function of oxidation state: Implications for a new oxybarometer
  11. Special collection: Apatite: A common mineral, uncommonly versatile
  12. Apatite in the dike-gabbro transition zone of mid-ocean ridge: Evidence for brine assimilation by axial melt lens
  13. Special collection: Apatite: A common mineral, uncommonly versatile
  14. LA-Q-ICP-MS apatite U/Pb geochronology using common Pb in plagioclase: Examples from layered mafic intrusions
  15. Special collection: Apatite: A common mineral, uncommonly versatile
  16. Chlorine and fluorine partitioning between apatite and sediment melt at 2.5 GPa, 800 °C: A new experimentally derived thermodynamic model
  17. Outlooks in earth and planetary materials
  18. On the mineralogy of the “Anthropocene Epoch”
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  22. Representative size distributions of framboidal, euhedral, and sunflower pyrite from high-resolution X-ray tomography and scanning electron microscopy analyses
  24. Phase relations of MgFe2O4 at conditions of the deep upper mantle and transition zone
  26. Thermodynamics and crystal chemistry of rhomboclase, (H5O2)Fe(SO4)2⋅2H2O, and the phase (H3O)Fe(SO4)2 and implications for acid mine drainage
  28. Chemical lattice expansion of natural zircon during the magmatic-hydrothermal evolution of A-type granite
  30. A new high-pressure phase transition in clinoferrosilite: In situ single-crystal X-ray diffraction study
  32. Investigating nanoscale mineral compositions: Iron L3-edge spectroscopic evaluation of iron oxide and oxy-hydroxide coordination
  33. Letter
  34. Nitrogen and carbon concentrations and isotopic compositions of the silica clathrate melanophlogite
  35. Letter
  36. Hollisterite (Al3Fe), kryachkoite (Al,Cu)6(Fe,Cu), and stolperite (AlCu): Three new minerals from the Khatyrka CV3 carbonaceous chondrite
  38. New Mineral Names
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