ARMENITE: A REALLY RARE MINERAL?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Armenite is a quite uncommon double-ring Ba-Al-Ca silicate hydrate belonging to the milarite-osumilite group and \nwith the general formula BaCa2Al6Si9O30·2H2O. It generally forms pseudo-hexagonal whitish-pinkish crystals. \nHowever, in its structure, Si, Al ordering and H2O positions produce the deviation from hexagonal symmetry, \nexplaining the belonging to the Pnna or Pnc2 space groups. In thin section, armenite is quite elusive. In fact, it appears \ncolorless, with low relief and low first-order interference color. More complication arises from the tartan-like \ntwinning patterns (resembling that of microcline), patchy-like and/or undulose extinction as well as the monoaxial to \nstrongly biaxial (2V up to 65°) behavior. Its affinity to hexagonal or orthorhombic space groups as well as the reasons \nfor its anomalous optical features have formerly been an object of debate. Up to now, armenite has only been found \nin a dozen of places worldwide, among which Armen mine (Norway), Quebec (Canada), New South Wales \n(Australia), Scotland, Switzerland, and Sardinia (Italy). It typically forms veins within the host rocks in different \ngeological environments. These include metasomatic basic to intermediate igneous rocks, mineralized skarn and \nhornfels, and gneisses indicating that the interaction between fluid phases and a primary Ba source is required for its \nformation. \nHere we report the third occurrence of armenite in Sardinia, from the Rosas mine area (Mitza Sermentus mineworks, \nsouth-west Sardinia). Armenite-bearing samples were collected along the contact between a sulfide-mineralized \nskarn vein and a black phyllite host-rock. The black phyllite matrix consists of muscovite, chamosite and quartz with \nfeldspars, clinozoisite, titanite, and calcite as accessory phases. The skarn is made up of clinopyroxene, amphibole, \nepidote, chlorite and wollastonite, and calcite; accessory minerals are titanite, apatite, prehnite, and baryte. The ore \nminerals mainly consist of galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, and pyrite. Armenite is usually concentrated in mm-wide \nwhite veinlets along the contact between the sulfide mineralization and the host rock or more rarely dispersed in the \nphyllite matrix. At first, interpreted as an altered feldspar, it was identified by SEM-EDS analyses. Despite being \nsemi-quantitative, the analyses provided compositions very close to stoichiometric armenite, with SiO2 ~ 48 wt.%, \nAl2O3 ~ 28 wt.%, BaO ~ 13 wt.% and CaO ~ 10 wt.%. This finding was further confirmed by XRPD analyses on \narmenite-rich polymineralic samples in which more than 20 peaks were assigned to this phase leading to a good \nmatch with an armenite in the PDF database (Ref. code 00-037-0432). Beyond its supposed rarity and its peculiar \ncrystal structure, three reasons make armenite deserving of attention: (i) understanding its genesis could better \nconstrain the P-T-fluid conditions of rocks in which armenite is found and that are often mineralized; (ii) given its \ndifficult recognition by base techniques, it is likely that armenite is more common than previously thought and is \nusually overlooked; (iii) since its formation requires a primary Ba source, armenite could be used as an indicator of \nthe proximity of Ba-rich deposits.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".