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Minyulite (hydrous K-Al fluophosphate) from South Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

L. J. Spencer
Affiliation:
Mineral Department of the British Museum
F. A. Bannister
Affiliation:
Mineral Department of the British Museum
M. H. Hey
Affiliation:
Mineral Department of the British Museum
Hilda Bennett
Affiliation:
Mineral Department of the British Museum

Extract

In 1908, at the close of the Franco-British Exhibition at Shepherd's Bush, London, a series of rock phosphates from various localities in South Australia was transferred to the Mineral Department of the British Museum as a present from the Government of South Australia. One large block from Wait's quarry at Noarlunga, 20 miles south of Adelaide, showed cavities lined with crusts of minute crystals. These crystals were determined goniometrically and optically in 1908 to be orthorhombic, and qualitative chemical tests showed the presence of Al, Mg, P, F, and H2O (K was missed). This evidently represented a new mineral, and it is only now that the work has been successfully completed by the three junior authors. In the meantime, however, the same mineral was discovered in Western Australia by the late Dr. E. S. Simpson in 1932, and named minyulite, from Minyulo Well. This he determined optically to be orthorhombie, and the formula was given as KAl2(OH,F)(PO4)2.3½H2O or 2K(OH, F).4A1PO4.7H2O. Crystallographic and X-ray data are now given for this species.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1943

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References

page 309 note 1 The rock phosphate deposit associated with Cambrian rocks with overlying Tertiary beds at this locality has been described in detail by Jack, R. L., The phosphate deposits of South Australia. Bull. Dept. Mines, South Australia, 1919, no. 7, 136 pp. (pp. 112–115).Google Scholar

page 309 note 2 Simpson, E. S. and LeMesurier, C. R., Minyulite, a new phosphate mineral from Dandaragan, W.A. Journ. Roy. Soc. Western Australia, 1933, vol. 19 (for 1932–33), pp. 1316. [M.A. 5–293.]Google Scholar

page 311 note 1 Larsen, E. S. and Berman, H., The microscopic determination of nonopaque minerals. 2nd edit, Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv., 1934, no. 848, p. 31.Google Scholar

page 312 note 1 Internationale Tabellen zur Bestimmung von Kristallstrukturen. Berlin, 1935, vol. 1, p. 103. [M.A. 6–145.]

page 313 note 1 They also contain traces of magnesium, which in small amount is an essential constituent of chlorophyll C5H72O5N4,Mg.