Normandite is a brittle orange brown
sorosilicate
Silicate minerals are rock-forming minerals made up of silicate groups. They are the largest and most important class of minerals and make up approximately 90 percent of Earth's crust.
In mineralogy, silica (silicon dioxide, ) is usually con ...
mineral discovered in 1997 by Charles Normand (born 1963), of Montreal. Normandite occurs in
Khibiny Massif
The Khibiny Mountains (russian: Хиби́ны ; sjd, Umptek) is one of the two main mountain ranges of the Kola Peninsula, Russia, within the Arctic Circle, located between Imandra and Umbozero lakes. The range is also known as Khibiny Massif, K ...
,
Kola
KOLA (99.9 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Redlands, California, and broadcasting to the Riverside-San Bernardino-Inland Empire radio market. It is owned by the Anaheim Broadcasting Corporation and it airs a classic hits radio form ...
,
Russia; in Poudrette quarry,
Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec (
type locality) and
Tenerife,
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
. It is found in
nepheline syenite
Nepheline syenite is a holocrystalline plutonic rock that consists largely of nepheline and alkali feldspar. The rocks are mostly pale colored, grey or pink, and in general appearance they are not unlike granites, but dark green varieties are al ...
and in
miarolitic cavities
Miarolitic cavities (or ''miarolitic texture'') are typically crystal-lined irregular cavities or vugs most commonly found in granitic pegmatites, and also in a variety of igneous rocks. The central portions of pegmatites are often miarolitic as ...
in nepheline syenite, associated with
nepheline
Nepheline, also called nephelite (), is a rock-forming mineral in the feldspathoid groupa silica-undersaturated aluminosilicate, Na3 K Al4 Si4 O16, that occurs in intrusive and volcanic rocks with low silica, and in their associated pegmatites ...
,
albite,
microcline,
aegirine,
natrolite,
catapleiite
Catapleiite (•2) is a dimorph of Gaidonnayite rarely found by itself. Its name derives from the Greek words “κατα” (kata) and “πλειον” (pleion) meaning “with more” as it is mostly accompanied by a number of rare mineral ...
,
kupletskite,
eudialyte,
cancrinite,
villiaumite
Villiaumite is a rare halide mineral composed of sodium fluoride, Na F. It is very soluble in water and some specimens fluoresce under long and short wave ultraviolet light. It has a Mohs hardness of 2.5 and is usually red, pink, or orange in col ...
,
rinkite, and
donnayite-(Y).
Normandite has a chemical formula of . It crystallizes in the
monoclinic-prismatic crystal system. It occurs as transparent to translucent orange-brown aggregates of subparallel
acicular crystals up to 10 mm in length, and as patches of yellow, fibrous crystals. It has a white to very pale yellow streak and vitreous luster. It is brittle, with distinct and cleavages, and a conchoidal fracture. It has a
specific gravity of 3.48 to 3.5, a
Mohs hardness of 5 to 6 and
refractive index values of nα=1.743, nβ=1.785 and nγ=1.810. It is named after Charles Normand (born 1963), Canadian geologist.
References
{{reflist
Webmineral dataMindat with location data
Sorosilicates
Monoclinic minerals
Minerals in space group 14