Pyroxene (silicates): Diopside
Diagnostic Card.
On the picture. Varieties diopside - mousse (below) and violan (above).
Ca Mg Si 2 O 6
Crystal system monoclinic
Hardness 6
The proportion of 3.2-3.3
Cleavage is perfect
The break in the wrong
Colour colorless, differently colored
Color white powder
Gloss glass
Diopside with fassaite, hedenbergite omphacite and belongs to the pyroxene metamorphic rocks. Calcium silicate and magnesium. Gloss glass. Rayed in small fragments, rarely transparent. Fracture is uneven, rough. Formed in skarns and metamorphic rocks. The crystals (monoclinic system) are most often prismatic or columnar with an almost square section. Usually solid or columnar and granular aggregates. Distribution Area: Saxony (Germany), the Alps, Vesuvius (Italy), Sweden, California (USA) in the CIS - Ural.
Deposits jewelry diopside are in Burma, India, Madagascar, South Africa, Finland (Outokumpu), Italy (Piedmont), Austria (Zillertal), the CIS (Aldan).
The most sought after stellate diopside, diopside cat's eye and emerald green chrome diopside. Thick violet blue grained variety from Piedmont (Italy) called violanom. Diopside can be confused with giddenitom, peridot, emerald, idocrase.
It crystallizes in the form of individuals is short-rich faces, in the cross section is almost square or octagonal. Most often it occurs in the form of granular, radiating and tonkoplastinchatyh units. Coloration variable (colorless, white, gray, green, yellow and brown). Gloss glass; mineral is brittle and easily split along the cleavage.
A number of completed hedenbergite diopside, which is a difference of glandular and glandular yohansenitom manganese. All three minerals are a set of isomorphic replacements. Variety violan (dubbed over dark violet-blue shade of its extremely rare crystals) is used in jewelry.
Chemical composition-content (%): SaO- 25,9; MgO-18,5; SiO, -55,6; common impurities of iron, manganese, aluminum, chromium, vanadium, titanium. Prismatic kind of symmetry. Cleavage - clear on the (100); often separately (001). Diopside - a mineral of the pyroxene group. It can have different colors, which creates impurities, iron, manganese, chromium and vanadium.
It occurs in the form is short-rarely tabular crystals with the main simple forms:. (100} (010) (111) (001) (101) (221) (310) Often there are twins on (100) (polysynthetic ), (101) and (122).
Diagnostic features.
It does not dissolve in hydrochloric acid and does not melt in the flame of a candle.
Origin.
Diopside - a common mineral that is found mainly in the metamorphic rocks that are rich in calcium and other rodingites ultramafic and mafic rocks.
Place of Birth.
Exceptional good snapping crystals are found in alpine rodingites in Val d'Allos (province of Turin), Anton Piana, Ossola (Province of Verbania), Bella Coast (Aosta). Diopside is also found in the Val Malenko (province of Sondrio), Adamello and Monte Somma (Vesuvius). In Europe it is found in the Urals, in the Austrian Tyrol, Finland and Sweden. From South India around the world diverge unique black stones with a mysterious play of light - at a point source light begins to shine on them a four star whose light comes from the bottom of the stone and moved with his movement and turns. Diopsides mined in Burma, Italy and Canada.
Application.
Diopside is of interest mainly to scholars and collectors. But if it is transparent, it can be used in jewelry.
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