Dumortierite

Dumortierite is a fibrous variably colored aluminium boro-silicate mineral, Al₇BO₃(SiO₄)₃O₃. Dumortierite crystallizes in the orthorhombic system typically forming fibrous aggregates of slender prismatic crystals. The crystals are vitreous and vary in color from brown, blue, and green to more rare violet and pink. Substitution of iron and other tri-valent elements for aluminium result in the color variations. It has a Mohs hardness of 7 and a specific gravity of 3.3 to 3.4. Crystals show pleochroism from red to blue to violet. Dumortierite quartz is blue colored quartz containing abundant dumortierite inclusions.

Dumortierite was first described in 1881 for an occurrence in Chaponost, in the Rhône-Alps of France and named for the French paleontologist Eugene Dumortier (1803-1873). It typically occurs in high temperature aluminium rich regional metamorphic rocks, those resulting from contact metamorphism and also in boron rich pegmatites. The most extensive investigation on dumortierite was done on samples from the high grade metamorphic Gfohl unit in Austria by Fuchs et al. (2005).

It is used in the manufacture of high grade porcelain. It is sometimes mistaken for sodalite and has been used as imitation lapis lazuli.

Sources of Dumortierite include Austria, Canada, France, Italy, Madagascar, Namibia, Nevada, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sri Lanka.

See also

* List of minerals
* List of minerals named after people

References

1. ^ a b http://webmineral.com/data/Dumortierite.shtml Webmineral data
2. ^ http://rruff.geo.arizona.edu/doclib/hom/dumortierite.pdf Handbook of Mineralogy
3. ^ http://www.mindat.org/min-1329.html Mindat.org

* Mineral galleries
* DUMORTIERITE AS A COMMERCIAL MINERAL
* DUMORTIERITE FROM NEVADA
* Y. Fuchs, A. Ertl, J.M. Hughes, S. Prowatke, F. Brandstätter & R. Schuster (2005). "Dumortierite from the Gföhl unit, Lower Austria". European Journal of Mineralogy 17 (1): 173–183. doi:10.1127/0935-1221/2005/0017-0173. http://eurjmin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/1/173. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
* M. Sabzehei (1971). "Dumortierite from Iran: A First Record". Mineralogical Magazine 38 (296): 526–527. doi:10.1180/minmag.1971.038.296.19.
* PB Moore, T Araki (1978). "Dumortierite A detailed structure analysis". Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie.
* G. F. Claringbull and M. H. Hey (1958). "New Data for Dumortierite". Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie 31 (242): 901–907. doi:10.1180/minmag.1958.031.242.02.

List of minerals