Abstract: Titanomaghemite occurs in a relatively fresh doleritic intrusion in an area of Precambrian gneiss in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It hosts exsolution lamellae of ilmenite and contains more than 90% of the iron in the ferric form. It is more resistant to weathering than the ilmenite and is inherited virtually unaltered by the resulting soils. Titanomaghemite, extracted as grains from a weathered rind of the rock, has lattice parameter a0 = 0.8348(3) nm and has a canted spin structure due to substitution of non-magnetic ions on tetrahedral and octahedral sites of the spinel structure. The average canting angle is 32 ± 3° and canting occurs predominantly on the octahedral iron sublattice. Its formula, based on microprobe analysis and Mössbauer spectroscopy may be expressed as: [Fe0.77Ti0.22Zn0.01]{Fe1.19Ti0.26Mn0.02Al0.04□0.49}O4 where [] and {} denote ions on tetrahedral and octahedral sites, respectively. The spontaneous magnetization of the mineral is 36(3) J/T/kg.
Mineralogical Magazine; June 1989 v. 53; no. 371; p. 299-304; DOI: 10.1180/minmag.1989.053.371.04
© 1989, The Mineralogical Society
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