Search results for " mineralogia"

New insights on secondary minerals from Italian sulfuric acid caves

2018

Sulfuric acid minerals are important clues to identify the speleogenetic phases of hypogene caves. Italy hosts ~25% of the known worldwide sulfuric acid speleogenetic (SAS) systems, including the famous well-studied Frasassi, Monte Cucco, and Acquasanta Terme caves. Nevertheless, other underground environments have been analyzed, and interesting mineralogical assemblages were found associated with peculiar geomorphological features such as cupolas, replacement pockets, feeders, sulfuric notches, and sub-horizontal levels. In this paper, we focused on 15 cave systems located along the Apennine Chain, in Apulia, in Sicily, and in Sardinia, where copious SAS minerals were observed. Some of the…

Secondary minerals from salt caves in the Atacama Desert (Chile): a hyperarid and hypersaline environment with potential analogies to the Martian sub…

2017

Over the past 15 years several expeditions by French, American and especially Italian cavers have unveiled over 50 caves in the Cordillera de la Sal (Atacama Desert, Northern Chile). Many of these caves contain a variety of speleothems and minerals, some of which have rarely been observed within karst systems. Most of the secondary deposits in these caves are composed of halite, but also other halide, carbonate, sulphate, nitrate, phosphate, and silicate minerals have been found. Among the sixteen cave mineral species recognized, atacamite, darapskite, blödite, leonite, anhydrite, and especially antarcticite are worth mentioning. In one of the samples an unknown Ca-Sr-bearing chloride miner…

The Bi sulfates from the Alfenza Mine, Crodo, Italy: An automatic electron diffraction tomography (ADT) study

2014

We report about three bismuth sulfates from mineralized quartz dikes from Alfenza (Crodo, Italy), two new phases and a rare mineral, cannonite, all growing on bismuthinite. The first new phase occurs as white, "hortensia-like" aggregates of pseudo-hexagonal platelets, with perfect basal cleavage, similar to 20 mu m wide and few micrometers thick. The approximate composition is Bi2O2(SO4), and cell parameters and symmetry, as determined by automatic diffraction tomography, are a = 22.0(4), b = 16.7(3), c = 15.9(3) angstrom, beta = 102.9(5)degrees, space group Pc or P2/c. A major stacking disorder is detected by HR-SEM images and electron diffraction data.The second new phase was detected onl…

Bader’s topological analysis of the electron density in the pressure-induced phase transitions/amorphization in α-quartz from the catastrophe theory …

2013

In this work, the Bader's topological analysis of the electron density, coupled with Thom's catastrophe theory, was used to characterize the pressure-induced transformations in α-quartz. In particular, ab initio calculations of the α-quartz structures in the range 0-105 Gpa have been performed at the HF/DFT exchange-correlation terms level, using Hamiltonians based on a WC1LYP hybrid scheme. The electron densities calculated throughout the ab initio wave functions have been analysed by means of the Bader's theory, seeking for some catastrophic mechanism in the sense of Thom's theory. The analysis mainly showed that there is a typical fold catastrophe feature involving an O-O interaction at …

A Bader’s topological approach for the investigation of the high pressure stability field of the Mg-perovskite phase

2014

Low-pressure ferroelastic phase transition in rutile-type AX2 minerals: cassiterite (SnO2), pyrolusite (MnO2) and sellaite (MgF2)

2019

The structural behaviour of cassiterite (SnO2), pyrolusite (MnO2) and sellaite (MgF2), i.e. AX2-minerals, has been investigated at room temperature by in situ high-pressure single-crystal diffraction, up to 14 GPa, using a diamond anvil cell. Such minerals undergo a ferroelastic phase transition, from rutile-like structure (SG: P42/mnm) to CaCl2-like structure (SG: Pnnm), at ≈ 10.25, 4.05 and 4.80 GPa, respectively. The structural evolution under pressure has been described by the trends of some structure parameters that are other than zero in the region of the low-symmetry phase’s stability. In particular, three tilting-angles (ω, ω′, ABS) and the metric distortion of the cation-centred oc…

In situ analysis of garnet inclusion in diamond using single-crystal X-ray diffraction and X-ray micro-tomography

2012

A single crystal of garnet enclosed in a diamond from the Jericho kimberlite (Slave Craton, Canada) has been investigated using X-ray diffraction and X-ray micro-tomography. The novel experimental approach allowed us to determine the crystal structure of the garnet. The unit-cell edge a and fractional atomic coordinates of oxygen were used to determine the composition via an updated Margules model for garnets. The composition is Pyr(0.41(5))Alm(0.36(7))Gro(0.22(1))Uva(0.01(1)), which is indistinguishable from the eclogitic garnets found in other Jericho diamonds. We also demonstrated that residual pressures on the inclusion of up to 1 GPa do not affect significantly the determination of the…

Montmorillonite nanodevices for the colon metronidazole delivery.

2013

The adsorption profiles of the antibiotic metronidazole (MNE) into the K10-montmorillonite (MMT-K10) clay and the subsequent release have been investigated as a function of pH and MNE/MMT-K10 ratio, in order to evaluate the potential of the MNE/MMT-K10 hybrids as controlled drug delivery system. The adsorption mechanism has been first elucidated by performing complementary equilibrium and kinetic studies and through the X-ray diffractometry (XRD) characterization of the obtained composite materials. The gathered results allowed us to propose a mechanism consisting of a multi-step pathway involving the neutral and the cationic form of the drug, which interact with different sites of the clay…

Simultaneous Removal and Recovery of Metal Ions and Dyes from Wastewater through Montmorillonite Clay Mineral

2019

The main objective of this work was to evaluate the potential of Montmorillonite nanoclay (Mt), readily and inexpensively available, for the simultaneous adsorption (and removal) of two classes of pollutants: metal ions and dyes. The attention was focused on two &ldquo

Characterization of the Etna volcanic emissions through an active biomonitoring technique (moss-bags): Part 2 – Morphological and mineralogical featu…

2013

Volcanic emissions were studied at Mount Etna (Italy) by using moss-bags technique. Mosses were exposed around the volcano at different distances from the active vents to evaluate the impact of volcanic emissions in the atmosphere. Morphology and mineralogy of volcanic particulate intercepted by mosses were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). Particles emitted during passive degassing activity from the two active vents, Bocca Nuova and North East Crater (BNC and NEC), were identified as silicates, sulfates and halide compounds. In addition to volcanic particles, we found evidences also of geogenic, anthropogenic and marin…