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Muscovite mineral

Muscovite is a mica mineral species with ideal formula KAl2(Si3Al)O10(OH)2, distinct from generic mica, biotite, phlogopite, traded potash and potassium-bearing feldspars. The September 2026 IMA list records approval by a 1998 special procedure, not a numbered mineral accession. The curated laboratory specimen is a chemically characterized natural museum muscovite flake; its composition is not an ideal pure endmember. No criticality designation is inferred from its potassium or aluminium content.

Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)

Fungal-associated muscovite surface alteration under potassium limitation

bioleaching Microbial

Associated Organisms: Paxillus involutus (NCBITaxon:71150)

After 21 days with Paxillus involutus, muscovite surfaces showed uneven erosion and localized removal of surface layers relative to the pre-exposure images. These observations support a bounded fungal-weathering interpretation. They do not demonstrate an efficient potassium supply: potassium concentration in harvested mycelium was not significantly greater than in the potassium-depleted, mineral-free fungal control. Neither surface alteration nor gene-expression associations establish a quantified potassium extraction yield or isolated recovery product.

Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
Pinzari2024 used the source-reported ATCC 200175 strain, with ITS Sanger identity checking described in SI S2. SI S3 identifies muscovite NHM specimen BM 1937,454 from a granite pegmatite at Jegdalek, Siah Koh, Afghanistan. SEM-EDX and microprobe provided its structural composition; XRD detected no associated minerals. Approximately 2 cm2 flakes were ultrasonically cleaned in deionized water and autoclaved at 121 degrees C for 15 minutes. Flakes rested on sterile cellophane over 30 mL modified Melin–Norkrans agar in 100-by-20 mm Petri dishes. Three 5 mm plugs from the edge of seven-day cultures inoculated each dish; incubation was 21 days at 25 degrees C in darkness. The muscovite arm and mineral-free negative control omitted KH2PO4, with ammonium phosphate adjusted to balance phosphorus against the complete-medium positive control. These recipe changes are not a matched abiotic mineral control or proof that every nitrogen-related variable was identical. Residual potassium in agar and cellophane means the depleted arm was not potassium-free. Five biological replicates per condition were used for elemental analysis; five per condition were sequenced, although ten were initially allocated to RNA extraction. The assay lacked plants and is a laboratory fungal system, not demonstrated industrial bioleaching or plant nutrient transfer.
Curated Evidence Points:
Methods 2.1–2.3 and Results 3.3, especially Figure 1a1–a3, compare initial muscovite surfaces with those exposed to the fungus and document localized alteration. The comparison is before versus after exposure, not a matched, aged, fungus-free muscovite treatment. Figures 1b/c concern other minerals and do not establish their effects for muscovite.
Methods S1–S3 and Figure S1 establish the medium, organism verification procedure, separate mineral/control arms, specimen provenance and preparation. Muscovite was assigned structural formula (Si3.13Al0.87)(Al1.72Mg0.11Fe3+0.19)(Na0.10K0.83)O10(OH)2. Reported lack of XRD-detected accessory phases is not proof that all trace contamination is absent. The KCl exchange treatment applies only to vermiculite, not muscovite.
Table 3 and Results 3.2/3.4 explicitly limit potassium acquisition: mycelial K was 6.80 ± 0.96 micrograms per gram dry mycelium with muscovite versus 5.52 ± 1.69 in the depleted control (means ± SD, n=5); both share statistical group c under the reported ANOVA/Tukey comparison. These are concentrations in digested harvested material, not percent release from the mineral or total recovered K. Mineral flakes were removed before digestion; carryover and abiotic-aged-mineral contributions were not separately mass-balanced. Trace K in agar/cellophane and possible inoculum carryover prevent interpreting detected K alone as mineral-derived.
Table 1 reports initial agar pH 5.6 ± 0.1 and final muscovite-arm pH 2.12 ± 0.19, but the depleted control shares a statistical group with the mineral arms. Figures 2–5 and Table 5 show transcriptomic responses largely overlapping potassium depletion, with some differential expression. Proposed redox or metal-binding weathering pathways are interpretations of expression and morphology, not knockout-tested causal mechanisms or direct enzymatic-rate measurements. No significant upregulation of the identified potassium-transporter genes versus the depleted control was reported. The earlier Pinzari2022 study is cited as related work, not counted here as an independently verified replication.
Context_only Source: ncbi_paxillus
Taxon 71150 resolves the species name only. ATCC 200175 is retained as reported by the primary study; the checked ATCC product URL did not resolve, and no independent authentication of the culture stock or strain-specific taxonomy mapping is claimed.
Context_only Source: geo_158973
The live series metadata links the same five-condition, twenty-five-sample RNA-seq study to the publication and taxon 71150. The sequence dataset is a provenance lead, not a new mineral-weathering experiment; raw read reanalysis and gene-level supplemental-table validation are outside the accepted surface and concentration comparisons.

Sources & References

  1. ima_2026_09: IMA-CNMNC. The New IMA List of Minerals, September 2026; definitions pp.1–2 and Muscovite row PDF p.150, KAl2(Si3Al)O10(OH)2, A, 1998 s.p. Retained official original re-inspected 14 October 2026.
    https://cnmnc.units.it/files/editor/IMA_Master_List_(2026-09).pdf (accessed 2026-10-14)
  2. muscovite_handbook: Handbook of Mineralogy: Muscovite, 2001 version 1.2; complete one-page entry, monoclinic mica identity, composition and polytypes.
    https://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/muscovite.pdf (accessed 2026-10-14)
  3. pinzari_2024: Pinzari, F.; Cuadros, J.; Saiardi, A.; Humphreys-Williams, E.; Jungblut, A.D. (2024). Bespoke strategies of Paxillus involutus to extract potassium from diverse phyllosilicates. Fungal Biology 128:2341–2354. DOI 10.1016/j.funbio.2024.08.002. Complete fourteen-page published original, Figures 1–5 and Tables 1–5 inspected.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.funbio.2024.08.002 (accessed 2026-10-14)
  4. pinzari_2024_si: Pinzari et al. (2024) official supplementary materials, original DOCX mmc1; complete document inspected through text and five rendered pages. Methods S1–S3, Figures S1–S2 and supplemental-data descriptions.
    https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1878614624001065-mmc1.docx (accessed 2026-10-14)
  5. ncbi_paxillus: NCBI Taxonomy: Paxillus involutus, taxon 71150, species rank; authoritative XML checked 14 October 2026. This is not a strain-specific accession.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=71150 (accessed 2026-10-14)
  6. geo_158973: NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus GSE158973, Bespoke strategies of Paxillus involutus to extract potassium from diverse phyllosilicates; series metadata inspected, public 3 October 2025, updated 3 January 2026, linked PMID39653481 and BioProject PRJNA667209. Same experiment, not independent replication.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE158973 (accessed 2026-10-14)

Curation History

Timestamp Curator Action Summary
2026-10-14T14:01:07.024267+00:00 codex (GPT-6; codex) CREATE Created muscovite from the complete original and official supplement, preserving specimen characterization, fungal surface alteration, null potassium-assimilation contrast, residual potassium, control limits and proposed-versus-demonstrated mechanism boundaries.

Record source: data/records/muscovite.yaml