Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (3) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by GRAMACCIOLI, C. M. Articles by ORLANDI, P. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Scandium minerals in the miaroles of granite at Baveno, Italy

¹ Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Milano, Via Botticelli 23, I-20133 Milano
² Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Via S.Maria 53, I-56100 Pisa

^* Corresponding author, e-mail: carlo.gramaccioli{at}unimi.it

The discovery of bazzite [Be₃Sc₂Si₆O₁₈] in the granites at Baveno, Italy, dates back to 1915, just a few years after the discovery in Norway of thortveitite, the first known scandium mineral (1911). In 1982 two new scandium minerals, cascandite [CaScSi₃O₈(OH)] and jervisite [NaScSi₂O₆] were discovered as additional rarities at Baveno. Owing to the increased activity of collectors, a number of additional finds of bazzite have resulted; similarly, other scandium minerals were recognized to be present, among which thortveitite (Orlandi, 1990) and scandiobabingtonite [Ca₂FeScSi₅O₁₄(OH)] (Orlandi et al., 1998), the former sometimes affording interesting blue, Mn-bearing specimens (Gramaccioli et al., 2000b).

On considering all these discoveries, five of the nine scandium minerals known so far occur at Baveno, which is the type locality for four of them. However, scandium phosphates such as kolbeckite [ScPO₄·2H₂O] and pretulite [ScPO₄] which are relatively diffuse in nature are absent. A possible reason for such a situation is linked to the particular process of formation of these minerals at Baveno, which most probably involves disruption of REE/Sc fluoride complexes following the deposition of relatively abundant fluorite and zinnwaldite from the solutions; there is marked similarity with the Norwegian locality of Heftetjærn, Tørdal, where fluorite is common and many of the Sc-bearing species are the same as at Baveno.

Key-words: Baveno, scandium minerals.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				I. O. Galuskina, E. V. Galuskin, P. Dzierzanowski, T. Armbruster, and M. Kozanecki A natural scandian garnet American Mineralogist, October 1, 2005; 90(10): 1688 - 1692. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]