Original paper
A survey of hybrid twins in silicate minerals
Pignatelli, Isabella; Nespolo, Massimo; Ferraris, Giovanni
European Journal of Mineralogy Volume 23 Number 5 (2011), p. 779 - 794
published: Dec 1, 2011
Abstract
This article is the second part of the survey presenting a systematic crystallographic analysis of hybrid twins in minerals. Here we deal with silicate minerals and in particular the hybrid twins of allanite, augite, axinite, beryl, chloritoid, clinoenstatite, clinozoisite, cordierite, cummingtonite-grunerite, diopside-hedenbergite, enstatite-ferrosilite, epidote, forsterite-fayalite, johannsenite, natrolite, piemontite, pigeonite, protoenstatite, pumpellyite, pyroxmangite, quartz, titanite, spodumene, staurolite, topaz, tourmaline, tremoliteactinolite-ferroactinolite, tridymite. The comparison with the twin analysis of non-silicate minerals shows that the number of hybrid twins for non-silicates is higher than that of the silicates. This well agrees with the fact that the twin formation is favoured by the high symmetries of the close-packing topologies, typical of many non-silicates, especially oxides and simple sulphides, whereas the silicate structures are more complex and characterized by different degrees of polymerization of Si-O tetrahedra.
Keywords
twinning • hybrid twinning • reticular merohedry • reticular polyholohedry • effective twin index • concurrent (quasi)restored sublattices