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Metastable Crystallization and Structural Complexity of Minerals

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Abstract

The physical basis has been elaborated for Goldsmith’s rule that states that the “ease” of crystallization of minerals is related to the simplicity (or simplexity) of their crystal structures. It has been shown that high-temperature polymorphs of minerals possess high entropies and, as a rule, low complexity and low density. The latter results in low values of the surface energy of nuclei and low values of the nucleation energy barrier, leading to the preferential crystallization of metastable polymorphs with simple structures. This effect is especially meaningful for high supersaturations created by the kinetics of natural processes (including rapid cooling of melts and solutions).

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Funding

This study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 19-17-00038, https://rscf.ru/project/19-17-00038/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal Research Center, Kola Science Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, 184209, Apatity, Russia

    S. V. Krivovichev

  2. St. Petersburg State University, 199034, St. Petersburg, Russia

    S. V. Krivovichev

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  1. S. V. Krivovichev
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Correspondence to S. V. Krivovichev.

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Krivovichev, S.V. Metastable Crystallization and Structural Complexity of Minerals. Dokl. Earth Sc. 507, 1040–1043 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1028334X22600803

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1028334X22600803

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