Bafertisite, Ba(Fe, Mn)2Ti(Si2O7)O(OH, Cl)2, has been reported as belonging to three space groups, i.e., Pmmn, P21/m, and Cm. The samples of bafertisite from the original locality Bayan Obo, Inner Mongolia, and from Jiangsu Province, China, were reinvestigated by X-ray methods. On the basis of single-crystal photographs, Pmmn could be ruled out and the relationship between a subcell in P21/m and the true cell in Cm deduced. The transformation matrix from the subcell to the true cell is 002/02¯0/101¯. Using the X-ray powder data, the refined true unit cell parameters in space group Cm are: a=10.612(3), b=13.637(7), c=12.464(2) Å, β=119.49(2)° for Bayan Obo sample, and a=10.633(6), b=13.67(1), c=12.465(5) Å, β=119.55(4)° for the Jiangsu sample. The 00l-reflections, which are rather prominent due to preferred orientation, can only be explained by our new unit cell.
