Epidote

Epidote is a calcium aluminium iron sorosilicate mineral.

Description

Well-developed crystals of epidote, Ca₂Al₂(Fe³⁺;Al)(SiO₄)(Si₂O₇)O(OH), crystallizing in the monoclinic system, are of frequent occurrence: they are commonly prismatic in habit, the direction of elongation being perpendicular to the single plane of symmetry. The faces are often deeply striated and crystals are often twinned. Many of the characters of the mineral vary with the amount of iron present for instance, the color, the optical constants, and the specific gravity. The color is green, grey, brown or nearly black, but usually a characteristic shade of yellowish-green or pistachio-green. It displays strong pleochroism, the pleochroic colors being usually green, yellow and brown. Clinozoisite is green, white or pale rose-red group species containing very little iron, thus having the same chemical composition as the orthorhombic mineral zoisite. The name is derived from the Greek word "epidosis" (επίδοσις) which means "addition" in allusion to one side of the ideal prism being longer than the other.

Epidote is an abundant rock-forming mineral, but one of secondary origin. It occurs in marble and schistose rocks of metamorphic origin. It is also a product of hydrothermal alteration of various minerals (feldspars, micas, pyroxenes, amphiboles, garnets, and others) composing igneous rocks. A rock composed of quartz and epidote is known as epidosite. Well-developed crystals are found at many localities: Knappenwand, near the Großvenediger in the Untersulzbachthal in Salzburg, as magnificent, dark green crystals of long prismatic habit in cavities in epidote schist, with asbestos, adularia, calcite, and apatite; the Ala valley and Traversella in Piedmont; Arendal in Norway; Le Bourg-d'Oisans in Dauphiné; Haddam in Connecticut; Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, here as large, dark green, tabular crystals with copper ores in metamorphosed limestone.

The perfectly transparent, dark green crystals from the Knappenwand and from Brazil have occasionally been cut as gemstones.

Related species

Belonging to the same isomorphous group with epidote are the species piemontite and allanite, which may be described as manganese and cerium epidotes respectively.

Piemontite occurs as small, reddish-black, monoclinic crystals in the manganese mines at San Marcel, near Ivrea in Piedmont, and in crystalline schists at several places in Japan. The purple color of the Egyptian porfido rosso antico is due to the presence of this mineral.

Allanite and dollaseite-(Ce) have the same general epidote formula and contain metals of the cerium group. In external appearance allanite differs widely from epidote, being black or dark brown in color, pitchy in lustre, and opaque in the mass; further, there is little or no cleavage, and well-developed crystals are rare. The crystallographic and optical characters are similar to those of epidote; the pleochroism is strong with reddish-, yellowish-, and greenish-brown colors. Although not a common mineral, allanite is of fairly wide distribution as a primary accessory constituent of many crystalline rocks, gneiss, granite, syenite, rhyolite, andesite, and others. It was first found in the granite of east Greenland and described by Thomas Allan in 1808, after whom the species was named. Allanite is a mineral readily altered by hydration, becoming optically isotropic and amorphous: for this reason several varieties have been distinguished, and many different names applied. Orthite was the name given by Jöns Berzelius in 1818 to a hydrated form found as slender prismatic crystals, sometimes a foot in length, at Finbo, near Falun in Sweden. Dollaseite is less common, famous from the Ostanmossa mine in the Norberg district of Sweden.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• The mineral Epidote Mineral Galleries