Strontian strontianite: combining old collections and modern analytical tools to piece together Sr-mineral paragenesis at a classic locality
Resource type
ConferenceItem Conference poster (unpublished)
Creator (person)
Bob, Gooday
Walcott, Rachel
Abstract
The Strontian lead mines in Lochaber, western Scotland are a unique and historically-important mineral locality, being the source of discovery of the element strontium and the type locality for two strontium minerals (strontianite and brewsterite-Sr). With several potential applications of strontium in green technologies, it is important to develop our understanding of its mineralogy and paragenesis. The National Museums Scotland mineral collection has a large number of strontianite specimens from the mines at
Strontian, among other locations. The specimens include individual crystals showing colour diversity as well as transects of the vein. These allow the textural and paragenetic relationships between strontianite and the other mineralised phases in the deposit, namely calcite, baryte, and various sulphides to be deduced. The relationship between strontianite and calcite is especially significant, as both exhibit a range of characteristics that can be linked to mineralisation history. The calcite from Strontian in particular shows a remarkable series of crystal habits, each associated with specific colours, fluorescence, and trace-element chemistry. Combining detailed
mineralogical observations with SEM-based analytical tools (EDS, WDS, CL) allows us to fully interrogate the relationships between these minerals and map the distribution of elements between and within each mineral phase. Here we present mineral chemistry data for the strontian strontianites and detailed major element maps showing the textural relationships between the strontianite and calcite, baryte, galena, sphalerite, and other sulphides in the
Strontian mines. We also propose a preliminary calcite-strontianite mineralisation sequence and paragenetic model based on mineral textures in specimens from the National Museums Scotland mineral collection.
Event title
Mineral Deposits Study Group
Publisher
Mineral Deposits Studies Group
Rights statement
In Copyright