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Crystal chemistry of nephelines from ijolites and nepheline-rich pegmatites: influence of composition and genesis on the crystal structure investigated by X-ray diffraction

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Abstract

Ten nepheline single crystals from five different localities representing rocks from nepheline-syenite pegmatites to urtite, ijolite and cancrinite-ijolite were investigated chemically and structurally. The chemical compositions were determined by electron microprobe, whereas the crystal structures were refined against X-ray diffraction data to R values of 0.022–0.031. In all cases the crystal structures conformed to space group P63, but at the same time all crystals produced some satellite reflections testifying to the modulation effects in their structure. This work confirms the presence of satellite reflections as a universal property of nepheline and resolves some controversy about this issue present in older works. The samples show a range of compositions with variable excess of Si over Al combined with vacancies in the alkaline sites. Vacancies are present exclusively in the symmetric ditrigonal channels occupied preferentially by K atoms in natural nepheline. The influence of the variable amounts of K, Na and vacancies to the increase of volume at this site is shown to be in the order □>K>Na. It has been confirmed that natural nepheline can partly depart from Loewenstein’s rule and show some degree of disorder in the Si/Al distribution. Most of the samples revealed a practically full Si-Al-ordering, but the crystals from one of the nepheline-syenite pegmatites in Langesundsfjord, Norway and from the type locality of ijolite, Iivaara, Finland, showed a disorder of 10–20% suggesting a different cooling history for these rocks.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Troels Nielsen from GEUS, Denmark for providing the Greenland samples and for the important information about their geological background, Ragnar Törnroos and his coworkers at the University of Helsinki for providing the sample from Iivaara and Trine-Lise Knudsen for providing the pegmatite samples from Langesundsfjord. This investigation was supported by the European Science Foundation (ESF) under the EUROCORES Program EuroMinSci (www.esf.org/eurominsci), through contract No. ERAS-CT-2003-980409 of the European Commission, DG Research, FP6. Financial supports by the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) under the grant I62-N10, in the frame of the EuroMinSci ORION project and the Danish National Research Council grant are gratefully acknowledged.

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Author notes

  1. Predrag Vulić

    Present address: Department of Crystallography, Faculty of Mining and Geology, University of Belgrade, Đušina 7, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia

  2. Louise Josefine Belmonte

    Present address: Arctic Technology Centre, DTU Civil Engineering, Danish Technical University, Kemitorvet, building 204, 2, 2800, Lyngby, Denmark

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mineralogy and Petrography, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Predrag Vulić & Volker Kahlenberg

  2. Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, 1350, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Tonči Balić-Žunić & Louise Josefine Belmonte

Authors
  1. Predrag Vulić
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  2. Tonči Balić-Žunić
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  3. Louise Josefine Belmonte
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  4. Volker Kahlenberg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Predrag Vulić.

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Editorial handling: R. Abart

Electronic supplementary materials

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Online Resource 1

Structure data for investigated crystals. U ij are given in Å2 (PDF 60 kb)

Online Resource 2

Selected interatomic distances (Å) (PDF 49 kb)

Online Resource 3

Selected bond angles (°) (PDF 49 kb)

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Vulić, P., Balić-Žunić, T., Belmonte, L.J. et al. Crystal chemistry of nephelines from ijolites and nepheline-rich pegmatites: influence of composition and genesis on the crystal structure investigated by X-ray diffraction. Miner Petrol 101, 185–194 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00710-010-0143-5

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