What minerals are in olivine?

What minerals are in olivine?

Olivine incorporates only minor amounts of elements other than oxygen (O), silicon (Si), magnesium (Mg) and iron (Fe). Manganese (Mn) and nickel (Ni) commonly are the additional elements present in highest concentrations.

What mineral family is olivine in?

iron silicate minerals
olivine, any member of a group of common magnesium, iron silicate minerals.

What is olivine structure?

Olivines. The olivine group is composed of minerals of the general formula X2SiO4 where X = Mg ,Fe2+, or Ca; Y = Al, Cr, or Fe3+; and Z = Si. The X-site is 8 coordinated, the Y -site is 6-coordinated (octahedral) and the Z-site is 4-coordianted (tetrahedral).

What are the properties of olivine?

Physical Properties of Olivine Olivine is usually green in color but can also be yellow-green, greenish yellow, or brown. It is transparent to translucent with a glassy luster and a hardness between 6.5 and 7.0. It is the only common igneous mineral with these properties.

Is olivine an Equant?

Olivine is typically found in mafic to ultramafic igneous rocks and in their metamorphic equivalents.

Is olivine a mineral?

Olivine Composition Olivine is the name given to a set of silicate minerals which have a generalized chemical composition of A2SiO4. In that generalized composition, “A” is generally Mg or Fe, however in unusual situations can be Ca, Mn, or Ni.

What are the three most useful properties for the identification of olivine?

Olivine is commonly recognized by it high retardation, distinctive fracturing, lack of cleavage, and alteration to serpentine. Colorless to olive green in thin section. Second-order interference colors.

Is olivine an Orthopyroxene?

Orthopyroxene is the second most abundant mineral in the upper mantle and, like olivine, can form crystallographic preferred orientations (CPO) during mantle deformation that may influence mantle seismic anisotropy.

Is olivine a Euhedral?

In such anhedral olivine grains, there is no crystallographic reference for extinction angle designation. Images C and D illustrate euhedral to subhedral olivine phenocrysts in basalt. Note the parallel extinction of the euhedral grain in the SE quadrant. Mg-rich olivine has a 2V of 90 +/- 10 degrees.

Is olivine a Phaneritic?

MAFIC ROCKS GABBRO – phaneritic (large crystals) of mafic minerals: olivine, pyroxene, etc.

Is olivine extrusive or intrusive?

Image Descriptions