Dorfmanite, a new mineral

Redetermination of kovdorskite, Mg2PO4(OH)·3H2O

“…For comparison, plotted in Fig. 1 are also the powder X-ray diffraction data tabulated in the original description of the mineral (Kapustin et al, 1980), which clearly agree with our measured data. In seeking the reason behind the discrepancies between the measured and calculated powder X-ray diffraction data and to better understand the relationships between the hydrogen environments and Raman spectra of hydrous minerals, we re-determined the structure of kovdorskite by means of single-crystal X-ray diffraction.…”

“…An examination of our structure data indicates that the discrepancy in the previously published crystallographic data for kovdorskite (Kapustin et al, 1980;Ovchinnikov et al, 1980;Lake & Craven, 2001) and the mismatch between the measured and calculated powder X-ray diffraction pattern result from the inconsistent choice of the unit-cell settings versus space groups by Kapustin et al (1980) andOvchinnikov et al (1980). The space group P2 1 /a and atomic coordinates given by Ovchinnikov et al (1980) actually correspond to a unit-cell a = 10.45, b =12.90, c = 4.73 Å, and β = 104.3°, which can be derived with the transformation matrix (1 0 1 / 0 1 0 / 0 0 1) from their reported cell parameters.…”

“…Comparison of the powder X-ray diffraction patterns for kovdorskite. The patterns are shown vertically offset for clarity: (a) by Kapustin et al (1980), (b) our measurement, (c) calculated pattern based on the data given by Ovchinnikov et al (1980), and (d) calculated pattern with space group and atomic coordinates reported by Ovchinnikov et al (1980), but a transformed unit-cell setting (see text). (7) 0.00004 (7) …”

“…For background to kovdorskite, see: Kapustin et al (1980);Ovchinnikov et al (1980); Ponomareva (1990); Lake & Craven (2001). For biomaterials studies of hydrated magnesium phosphates, see: Sutor et al (1974); Tamimi et al (2011);Klammert et al (2011).…”

“…They also play an important role in the fertilizer industry due to their solubility properties (Pelly & Bar-On, 1979) and in medical research. In particular, newberyite, Mg(HPO 4 ).3H 2 O, is a constituent of human urinary stones (Sutor et al, 1974) and has been found to act as a self-setting cement for synthetic bone replacements (Klammert et al, 2011) Kovdorskite from the Kovdor massif, Kola Peninsula, Russia was originally described by Kapustin et al (1980) In the course of identifying minerals for the RRUFF project (http://rruff.info), we noted that the powder X-ray diffraction pattern of kovdorskite we measured on a sample from the type locality displays some obvious inconsistencies with that calculated from the structure model given by Ovchinnikov et al (1980) (Fig. 1).…”