What are the properties of rutile?
What are the properties of rutile?
Rutile has a very high refractive index, a strong dispersion, and an adamantine luster. These are optical properties that can produce a great gemstone, and these properties in rutile rival or exceed those of diamond.
Is rutile a cleavage or fracture?
| Rutile | |
|---|---|
| Cleavage | {110} good, {100} moderate, parting on {092} and {011} |
| Fracture | Uneven to sub-conchoidal |
| Mohs scale hardness | 6.0–6.5 |
| Luster | Adamantine to submetallic |
What is a thin section used for?
In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section (or petrographic thin section) is a thin slice of a rock, mineral, soil, pottery, bones, or even metal sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron microprobe.
What are rutile needles?
def. Rutile: A high-pressure, high-temperature mineral that is the most common form of titanium oxide (TiO2). Rutile often forms as thin, needle-like crystals, which are commonly found as inclusions in minerals such as quartz and corundum. Rutile is commonly a brownish-red color due to the presence of iron impurities.
What is the hardness of rutile?
6 – 6.5
Rutile Information
| Data | Value |
|---|---|
| Refractive Index | 2.62-2.90 |
| Colors | Black, gray, deep red, brownish red. Greenish (if Nb present), also bluish and violet. A variety rich in Cr is deep green. |
| Luster | Metallic to adamantine. |
| Hardness | 6 – 6.5 |
What is rutile?
Rutile is a commercially important titanium mineral, although most titanium dioxide is produced from ilmenite. Rutile has minor uses in porcelain and glass manufacture as a colouring agent and in making some steels and copper alloys.
What is a rutile structure?
A type of ionic crystal structure in which the anions have a hexagonal close packed arrangement with cations in half the octahedral holes. The coordination number of the anions is 6 and the coordination number of the cations is 3.
What is thin section analysis?
Micromorphology, or thin-section analysis, is the microscopic examination of the composition and structure of sediments. It was originally developed in soil science, with concepts of plasmic fabric and morphological features and structures dating from the early 1960s1.
Why do geologists make thin sections?
A thin section or petrographic thin section is a type of laboratory preparation commonly used in geology, minerology, or petrography. Typically, a thin section is used to analyze a sample of rock, mineral, pottery, soil, bone, or even a piece of metal.
Is rutile soluble in water?
The calculated solubility of rutile, anatase, and Ti(OH) 4 in the water solution at 20−320 °C is reported in Figure 1 (solid lines). The solubility of rutile is rather low and ranges between 2 × 10 −6 at 20 °C and 2 × 10 −4 mol/kg at 320 °C. …
Why is rutile more stable than anatase?
Anatase has a larger band gap than rutile TiO2. While this reduces the light that can be absorbed, it may raise the valence band maximum to higher energy levels relative to redox potentials of adsorbed molecules.
How thin sections are made?
A thin sliver of rock is cut from the sample with a diamond saw and ground optically flat. It is then mounted on a glass slide and then ground smooth using progressively finer abrasive grit until the sample is only 30 μm thick.
What are the characteristics of staurolite?
Staurolite has parallel extinction and one cleavage parallel to its length, and has a characteristic pale to darker golden yellow pleochroism. This example has a twin, highlighted by different color and birefringence caused by its different orientation. The birefringence of staurolite is similar to that of kyanite, upper 1storder.
What are the characteristics of granulite facies schist?
This granulite facies schist has coarse sillimanite prisms that can be seen in long section and in their diamond-shaped cross sections. The lower second order blue birefringence can be seen in the long sections. Plane/cross-polarized light, field width is 3 mm.
How does andalusite differ from other silicate minerals?
Andalusite has lower relief than the other Al-silicates. Birefringence is first order white to pale yellow, much like quartz and feldspars but with higher relief and very different habit. In cross-polarized light the garnet is clearly isotropic garnet.
What are sillimanite prisms in a biotite–garnet–cordierite schist?
Sillimaniteprisms in a biotite–garnet–cordierite schist. This granulite facies schist has coarse sillimanite prisms that can be seen in long section and in their diamond-shaped cross sections. The lower second order blue birefringence can be seen in the long sections. Plane/cross-polarized light, field width is 3 mm. WE-1
