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THE ATOMIC STRUCTURE OF SIDEROTIL, (Fe,Cu)SO₄·5H₂O

Ronald C. Peterson^1,, Peter L. Roeder¹ and Yousheng Zhang²

¹ Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada
² Department of Chemistry, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada

E-mail address: peterson{at}geol.queensu.ca

Light-blue crystals of siderotil from the B drift in the Richmond Cu–Zn–pyrite mine, Iron Mountain, California, occur with coquimbite, römerite, halotrichite, copiapite and voltaite. The average result of electron-microprobe analyses of small crystals gave (Fe_0.55Cu_0.28Mg_0.09 Zn_0.08)₁SO₄·5H₂O as the empirical formula. The atomic structure of siderotil has been determined by least-squares refinement of single-crystal X-ray-diffraction data; wR = 5.7% for 1633 reflections, P, a 6.292(5), b 10.632(8), c 6.072(5) Å, 82.63(1), ß 110.02(1), 105.19(1)°. Siderotil is isostructural with chalcanthite CuSO₄·5H₂O. Bond-lengths and angles are similar to those of chalcanthite except that the long apical bonds of the octahedral sites in chalcanthite, which are the result of a square-planar distortion by Cu, are considerably shorter in siderotil because of the dominance of Fe at that site. The relative amount of Cu at the M1 and M2 sites can be inferred from the octahedral distortion that occurs as the result of substitution of Cu for Fe. Copper occupies only one of the metal sites (M1) in siderotil, and the composition is estimated to be (Fe,Zn,Mg)_0.73Cu_0.27SO₄·5H₂O on the basis of degree of site distortion.

Keywords: siderotil, sulfate minerals, crystal structure, mine waste, melanterite, rozenite.

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				R. C. Peterson and A. H. Grant DEHYDRATION AND CRYSTALLIZATION REACTIONS OF SECONDARY SULFATE MINERALS FOUND IN MINE WASTE: IN SITU POWDER-DIFFRACTION EXPERIMENTS Can Mineral, August 1, 2005; 43(4): 1171 - 1181. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]