Tourmaline from the Solnechnoe hydrothermal granitoid-related tin deposit in the Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Far East has been studied with electron microprobe, infrared and Mössbauer spectroscopy. Tourmaline formed in three distinct stages with different types of chemical substitution. Tourmaline from the first unmineralised stage is classified as dravite or schorl, which could be enriched locally in Ca, the X-site vacancy and F. This tourmaline is characterised by the Fe ↔ Mg and X vacancy + Al ↔ Na + Fe substitutions. The second, molybdenum-stage tourmaline, is schorl–dravite and fluor-schorl–fluor-dravite enriched in Ca, and a few compositions belong to the calcic group. The predominant substitution is Ca + Mg ↔ Na + Al. The third, tin-stage tourmaline, is classified as schorl–dravite with some tourmalines being fluor-schorl, oxy-schorl, foitite and magnesio-foitite. The tin-stage tourmaline is characterised by the substitutions Fe2+ ↔ Mg, Altot + O2– ↔ Fe2+ + OH–, and Fe3+ ↔ Altot. An increase of the Fe3+/Fetot value from 3–9% in the molybdenum stage to 12–16% in the tin-stage tourmalines indicates an increase in oxidation potential, which possibly contributed to cassiterite deposition. Comparison of tourmalines from greisen, porphyry and intrusion-related tin deposits worldwide shows they differ in primary chemical substitutions so can be characterised by this mechanism. The Fe3+/Fetot value in tourmaline also appears to be one of the indications for the tin deposit type. The Fe3+/Fetot value increases from <10% in greisen tourmaline through 15% in tourmaline from intrusion-related deposits to 20% in tourmaline from porphyry deposits.

An experimental study of an Al-rich schorl sample from Cruzeiro mine (Minas Gerais, Brazil) was carried out using electron microprobe analysis, structural refinement and Mössbauer, infrared and optical absorption spectroscopy in order to explore the disordering of Fe2+ over the Y and Z sites of the tourmaline structure.

A structural formula was obtained by merging chemical and structural data. The cation distribution at the two non-equivalent octahedrally coordinated sites (Y and Z) was obtained by two different optimization procedures which, minimizing the residuals between observed and calculated data, converged to the formula: X(Na0.65〈0.32Ca0.02K0.01)Σ1.00Y(Fe1.652+Al1.15Fe0.063+Mn0.052+Zn0.05Ti0.044+)Σ3.00Z(Al5.52Fe0.302+Mg0.18)Σ6.00[T(Si5.87Al0.13)Σ6.00O18](BBO3)3V(OH)3W[(OH)0.34F0.28O0.38]Σ1.00.

This result shows a partial disordering of Fe2+ over the Y and Z sites which explains adequately the mean atomic number observed for the Z site (13.5±0.1). Such a disordering is also in line with the shoulder recorded in the Mössbauer spectrum (fitted by a doublet with isomer shift of 1.00 mm/s and quadrupole splitting of 1.38 mm/s) as well as with the asymmetric bands recorded in the optical absorption spectrum at ∼9000 and 14,500 cm–1 (modelled by four Gaussian bands, centred at 7677 and 9418 cm–1, and 13,154 and 14,994 cm–1, respectively).

The high degree of consistency in the results obtained using the different methods suggests that the controversy over Fe2+ order can be ascribed to the failure to detect small amounts of Fe2+ at Z (typically <<10% atoms/site) rather than a steric effect of Fe2+ on the tourmaline structure.