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Laueite mineral

Laueite is a grandfathered triclinic manganese-ferric phosphate mineral with IMA ideal formula Mn(II)Fe(III)2(PO4)2(OH)2(H2O)6·2H2O and historical year 1954 in the September 2026 list. It is distinct from stewartite and pseudolaueite, which have different framework arrangements, and from strunzite, which has a different water content. Moore (1965) determined the P-1 structure of a natural Palermo No. 1 Quarry, New Hampshire crystal; hydrogen positions were not located. Baur (1969) proposed Mn(III) substitution from earlier bond lengths, while acknowledging other substituents; this was an interpretation, not a direct oxidation-state assay or current species formula. Grey et al. (2025) demonstrated an epitaxial orientation of laueite on stewartite in a natural Hagendorf-Sud composite crystal by single-crystal diffraction and indexed faces. Its rhomb contained both minerals. The EDS-derived laueite metal composition Mn0.66Mg0.17Fe2.17, scaled to three metal atoms, differs from the simplified refined Mn/Mg site occupancy 0.93(2)/0.07; neither is the ideal species formula. The ferric assignment and adjusted hydroxyl/water proportions were inferred from bond-valence and charge-balance considerations. Deposited checks flag displacement parameters, missing hydrogen sites and formula/Z reporting differences, limiting detailed atomistic interpretation. Suggested solution changes and heterosite-assisted nucleation remain paragenetic hypotheses. No controlled transformation, microbial mechanism, recovery performance or inherited criticality designation is curated.

Sources & References

  1. ima_2026_09: IMA-CNMNC. The New IMA List of Minerals, September 2026. Laueite row, PDF page 121: Mn2+Fe3+2(PO4)2(OH)2(H2O)6·2H2O, G, historical year 1954, Germany. Status definitions pages 1-2; G means grandfathered, not a numbered modern approval.
    https://cnmnc.units.it/files/editor/IMA_Master_List_(2026-09).pdf (accessed 2026-10-15)
  2. moore1965: Moore PB (1965). The crystal structure of laueite, Mn2+Fe3+2(OH)2(PO4)2(H2O)6·2H2O. American Mineralogist 50:1884-1892. Complete original; Palermo crystal and methods page 1885; Tables 1-3, structure refinement pages 1886-1887 and Figure 2 page 1888. Page 1889 explicitly states that hydrogen atoms were not located. Proposed stewartite/strunzite structures and other-mineral heating discussion are not direct laueite transformation experiments.
    https://msaweb.org/AmMin/AM50/AM50_1884.pdf (accessed 2026-10-15)
  3. baur1969: Baur WH (1969). A comparison of the crystal structures of pseudolaueite and laueite. American Mineralogist 54:1312-1323. Complete original; laueite calculations reuse Moore (1965) coordinates (Table 3), rather than a new laueite diffraction dataset. Pages 1321-1322 propose partial Mn(III) occupancy from bond lengths and discuss alternative smaller substituents. This hypothesis does not replace the current IMA ideal formula.
    https://www.rruff.net/doclib/am/vol54/AM54_1312.pdf (accessed 2026-10-15)
  4. grey2025: Grey IE, Keck E, Gable RW, Mumme WG, Hochleitner R and Glenn AM (2025). Laueite/stewartite epitaxy - a single-crystal diffraction study. Mineralogical Magazine 89:234-241. DOI 10.1180/mgm.2025.21. Complete original, Figures 1-6 and Tables 1-5: specimen/EDS page 235; mixed rhomb, diffraction extraction and weak minor-stewartite dataset page 236; refinement and epitaxy pages 237-239; proposed paragenesis pages 239-240. EDS composition, refined scattering occupancy and charge-balanced inferred formula are different quantities.
    https://doi.org/10.1180/mgm.2025.21 (accessed 2026-10-15)
  5. grey2025_laueite_check: Grey et al. (2025), supplementary material 1, six-page deposited laueite checkCIF/PLATON report. Pages 1-3 report missing structure factors for these checks, three A-level displacement alerts, missing H sites, formula/Z reporting alerts, Rint 0.149 and goodness of fit 3.36. These are unresolved model-quality qualifications, not proof that the mineral identity or observed epitaxial orientation is false. The associated CIF and stewartite report/CIF were also inspected; no diffraction re-refinement was performed.
    https://static.cambridge.org/content/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:article:S0026461X25000210/resource/name/S0026461X25000210sup001.pdf (accessed 2026-10-15)

Curation History

Timestamp Curator Action Summary
2026-10-15T19:32:02Z codex (GPT-6; codex) CREATE Created a distinct Mn-Fe phosphate identity with qualified natural epitaxy context, preserving historical oxidation-state hypotheses, measured versus refined composition, and deposited crystallographic quality alerts.

Record source: data/records/laueite.yaml