What names would you change?

If you had the chance to propose and justify name changes to existing minerals, what changes do you think would be positive in the mineralogical world?

To start it off I'd suggest:

Wolframite-(Fe) and Wolframite-(Mn) instead of Ferberite and Hubnerite

Jolyon

Agardite-(Ca) instead of Zalesiite.

Neither, there are tons of synonyms already.

Jolyon,

Aside from Rudolph Ferber and Adolph Hubner rolling in their graves, it should be OK.

David K Joyve

As a phase 1:

Any mineral groups using chemical prefixes:
zippeites (K, Co, Ni, mg, Na, Zn)
chromites (Fe, Co, Mg, Mn, Ni, Zn)
perovskites (perovskite, barioperovskite)
copiapites (Fe,²⁺, Mg, Cu, Fe³⁺, Ca, Zn, Al)
blodites (Mg, Ni, Zn)
arthurites (Cu,Co)
etc.
This will definitely aid in having group minerals together alphabetically without panicking most collectors. Also, exclude changing any person's or locality names.

All other Fluor.... and Hydroxy.... names where it's a (F,OH) and (OH,F) variation should be renamed as the Apatites have.

Jolyon

Hubeiite instead of Hubeite.

Analcime

The most embarrassing of the minerals, well next to Cummintonite

What about welshite, bullachite, dickite and fukalite?? )

Yes, the fluor-, chlor-, hydroxy- minerals would be a part of phase 1. Mineral names already Levinson-ized [i.e.,'hydroxylbastnaesite-(Ce)'] would require additional juggling.

Amphibole group minerals

(It's all just hornblende ...)

Would Bastnaesite-(CeOH) be too much of an abomination?

Jolyon

Not to me. But I'm used to the amphibole names.....

Yttrotungstite-(Ce) - is very silly, The ideal composition has no Yttrium in it.

The same applies to other rare earth species where the chemicl element was put in the main part of the name, Cerite-(La) and Fluocerite-(La) are other silly ones. I'm sure there are more.

I know that these are rare earths species so there is likely to be a little bit of the proper element present, but even so I would definitly change them.

Mike

How about Pyrite-(FeS), Pyrite-(PtSb), Pyrite-(NiSe)...

Frank

I'd also like to see Rhodizite-(K) and Rhodizite-(Cs), and Roselite-(Co) and Roselite-(Mg) - both examples where there probably should have been a more directly related name in the beginning.

However, it is almost certainly unfair on two people who have minerals named after them for the names Londonite and Wendwilsonite to disappear.

So I would like to see a new rule. If a new mineral found is a direct analogue of an existing species (eg Cs instead of K, Mg instead of Co) as in these two examples, and ESPECIALLY where there are two end members of a series, then the IMA should ONLY allow it to be named in relation to the other species. This avoids the problem of minerals having to be renamed later and upsetting people.

Jolyon

Although I'm not necessarily against the idea of renaming things where it helps introduce better consistency, perhaps there should be some kind of a statement from the IMA - How far will renaming go? Was it just an experiment, was there something special about the groups renamed so far, or will this carry on? If so, where will it stop?

Well, I hope it certainly doesn't go as far as Calcite-(Mn) for Rhodochrosite and Gold-(Ag) for Silver(!)

So far the species chosen for renaming, particularly Hancockite->Epidote-(Pb), seem to be pretty arbitrary. It seems to be a job half-completed.

Will the job be completed? If so, how far will it go?

Anyone care to say?

Jolyon

Certainly andorite IV and andorite VI need to be at least hyphenated, to andorite-IV or andorite-IV, as having a space in the name breaks a lot of indexing and databasing applications. But, lets not get started on ferrohogbomite-6N12S and its cousins.

renierite-reinerite
smithite-smythite

and Dutchspeaking people have trouble with the name lulzacite: in Dutch, "lul" = dick, and "sac" is pronounced as "zak" = scrotum!

"Hiortdahlite I" and "Hiortdahlite II" should be renamed. If the formulas presented in the last edition of Fleischer are correct, maybe Hiortdahlite-(Y) and Hiortdahlite-(Mn)? But this could be in conflict with the use of the Lewinson-rules for REE-minerals ? There could also in reality be more "Hiortdahlites" than only these two ? Anyway, the naming of the two "Hiortdahlites" presently on the IMA-list should in some way reflect the difference between them.

'Hiortdahlite I' and 'II' are polytypes, so Hiortdahlite should be used for both.

The genie is out of the bottle and it is not clear where it will end. It seems the pros have made a three pronged attack on the prolifereation of names. Starting about a decade ago an attempt was made to tighten criteria for new names. As I read Grice et al, oredering and polytypes were out, but homologous series and grandfathering were in. Also starting about that time was the attempt to define groups. This has the effect of considering groups as species and group members as varieties. Both of these attempts avoid the pros having to eat their young. Now we have the brackets which thankfully will remove lots of names and simplify mineralogy.

Gold and Silver ought to become Electrum-(Au) and Electrum-(Ag). I'd love to see Rhodochrosite as Calcite-(Mn). I'm not sure what would happen to Calcite-(Mg) and dolomite, but if ordering is gone, then so is dolomite. I tend to agree with Frank that Sperrylite could be Pyrite-(PtAs) and Auristbite, Pyrite-(AuSb). This would formalize the idea of groups becoming species.I think Peter's suggestion of Hornblende for Amphibole could be improved by including the pyroxenes and calling the mess Pyrobole.

The whole point of naming is to facilitate communication. Ideally one would like to call visually different things by different names. Sadly the world is not ideal and I'm not trying to resurrect Ruby and Sapphire. Frankly I am defeated by the acicular sulfides. Needle Ore covers too much, but is no more rediculous than calling a Jamesonite with more than a per cent Mn, Benevidesite. I had hoped that geology could be returned to mineralogy by considering deposit type in the naming. Unfortunately not enough is known about geochemical segregation for this to be practical. One does shudder at the number of new names for pyrite that deposit type could imply.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2008 07:52PM by Rob Woodside.

I've changed my mind.

Rhodizite is too close to Rhodesite, so let's scrap it altogether and have Londonite-(Cs) and Londonite-(K).

Also Millarite/Millerite and especially Lazurite/Lazulite would benefit from name changes to avoid confusions.

Jolyon

This appears to be spiralling into absurdity.

Hi Rob, you left out polysomes in your list.


I do miss Alan in threads like this.

And while speaking of absurdity... Meridianiite is a recent one I would change - a mineral named after an unvisited locality on Mars where we aren't even sure the mineral really occurs there!

And the all time winner for confusing names - "daubreelite" and "daubreeite", with a close second by "berthierine" and "berthierite".


And to be a little immature, "miassite" is a lot of fun to pronounce in different ways.

As a grandfather myself, I am strongly on the side of preserving existing names as much as possible - especially those treasured names that don't end in "-ite"! It was only a couple decades ago that the Commission brought back the original names of some of my favorite minerals; analcime, celestine, grossular, almandine, spessartine. Along with the exotics a la nosean, hauyne, spinel et al, the common-as-dirt names like quartz and sulfur have a linguistic right to live...

Ranting aside, I don't think mere isostructure should define two species as the same mineral with variations; unless a complete solid solution series is demonstrated in nature, I would consider the end points to be two different minerals.

I believe the paleontologists take a much more conservative view of changing names, and they have hundreds of times as many to contend with.

Bill

I think "Cummingtonite" should be changed to "Notlikelytonite"

Alternatively Mark..."Noimtiredallrite"

Bill: "I believe the paleontologists take a much more conservative view of changing names, and they have hundreds of times as many to contend with."

The paleontologists changed the name of my favorite trilobite from "Metacryphaeus caffer" to "Eldredgia venustus". I suspect they reclassify stuff as much as mineralogists do.

On a different note... I think Jolyon's intention when he started this thread was to stimulate serious discussion on mineral naming principles, but some of our later posts would better belong in the Scrapbook forum!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2008 03:42AM by Alfredo Petrov.

Ferritungstite and ferrimolybdite. Names imply that these are the same composition with tungsten substituting for molybdenum, but the formulas are different.

And speaking of miassite, why does it appear to be named after a non type locality? The mineral is pictured from the Miass River, but not listed, and was discovered in New Caledonia.

You're right. Not the only example of a mineral named for a locality that isn't its type locality. The most extreme example might be the meridianiite I referred to in a previous post, TL on Earth, named for a place on Mars !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2008 06:00AM by Alfredo Petrov.

Prassoite was approved in 1971, IMA 70-041, but was never published, so the name was not valid - so miassite it is! And the type locality is the Miass River - so, the lesson here is to publish or perish.

Hi Jim, Yes Alan is sorely missed.

Bill wrote:
"Ranting aside, I don't think mere isostructure should define two species as the same mineral with variations; unless a complete solid solution series is demonstrated in nature, I would consider the end points to be two different minerals."
The treatment of substitution and solid solutions is at the heart of the problem. If two elements can occupy a lattice site, then two names are given depending on which element predominates. E.g. ferberite and hubnerite, but pentlandite is an exception!!! When three elements can substititute, we get three names, one for each time an element occupies more than a third of the substitution sites. This gives us Native Ruthenium which is two thirds something else. With four elements, only 25% defines new species and with five elements, only 20% is needed for a species. I don't know any examples, but that is the "logic". It obviously can get crazy, so with structures that enjoy lots of substitution, lattice sites and substitututions get lumped as in the amphiboles, to try to keep things manageable. (Manageable??? with how many amphiboles???)(I was only kidding about Pyrobole, but beginning mineralogy students would love it!!!) I think there are enough exceptions to the "logic" that any claim that "it must be so, because that's the way it is" is completely hollow. Notice that the insanity is stopped with minor constituents. E.g. (X,Y,Z)W is given the same name as (X,Z,Y)W. So what to do?

Bill's suggestion that if a complete solid solution series is demonstrated in nature, then one might consider it a single species; is a good one. If the natural solution series has miscibility gap, then names should be given to compositions on each side of the gaps. However does "natural" include lab growths? Is the geological miscibility gap telling us something about geochemical segregation or is it a result of infrequent observation of rare elements? Notice there is a complete solution series between bismuthinite and stibnite, at least in the lab. In geology we get essentially pure end memebers, except for a small mine in Japan where the midrange Horobetsuite occurs. Apart from this mine, where Bi and Sb occur together, they show up in complicated sulfosalts with one or the other a minor constituent. I think in this instance we are glimpsing the effect of geochemical segregation. This where I'm stuck and don't know how to proceed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2008 05:28PM by Rob Woodside.

I agree that exceptions are annoying in a way, but traditional use can have very strong points.

> but that is the "logic".
Dominant is dominant, so it's all quite logical, I think.

> ... effect of geochemical segregation.
Temperature of formation? Cooling rate?! Stabilising impurities? Metastable states?

Thanks Uwe.
1) the traditional names often reflect geochemical segregation. For instance you get selenium rich vein deposits with little or no sulfur, yielding the almost pure selenium analogues of sulfide minerals. Many of these are in solution series and intermediate members will show up in deposits where the segregation of sulfur and selenium is incomplete. Similarly Arsenic and Antimony sulfosalts have end member deposits such as Lengenbach and Madoc.Etc.

2)Uwe wrote:
"Dominant is dominant, so it's all quite logical, I think."
Please permit me a gentle ad hominem argument: I think your Germanic heritage is showing! The "Dominant is dominant" is defeated by the sometimes annoying exceptions such as pentlandite, the amphiboles, as well as the ignoring of dominant minor impurties.

3)Uwe wrote:
"> ... effect of geochemical segregation.
Temperature of formation? Cooling rate?! Stabilising impurities? Metastable states?"
These questions are an important part of the problem, but they refer to the actual deposition of minerals, AFTER the geochemical segregation has occured.How is it that as fluids circulate some elements are enriched and others depleted? Presumably the depleted elements do deposit somewhere and your questions are crucial to this.

Move to new topic

Dave Barthelmy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2008 04:58PM by Dave Barthelmy.