Florenskyite

florenskyite

pentlandite

schreibersite

daubreelite

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Formula: FeTiP
Phosphide, florenskyite group, titanium-bearing mineral
Crystal System: Orthorhombic
Environments

Meteorites

Florenskyite was approved in 1999, but to date (March 2023) the only confirmed locality from which it has been reported is the type locality.

Localities

At the type locality, the Kaidun meteorite, Hadhramaut Governorate, Yemen, the chondritic meteorite, which fell in 1980, is a unique chondritic breccia containing a huge variety of fragments of different chondritic types. Florenskyite was found as four dispersed grains with a maximum size of 14 µm within a single mass of iron-rich serpentine within one Kaidun clast. Florenskyite is associated with submicrometer-sized grains of pentlandite and small (up to 1.5 µm in width) laths of a still uncharacterised iron-chromium phosphide. Florenskyite is creamy white in reflected light, with a metallic lustre. It is only the fourth phosphide to be described from nature. Its paragenesis may be unique, and may be due to melting of a mineral assemblage including iron-nickel metal, schreibersite, daubréelite, osbornite or heideite and subsequent crystallisation of phosphides from the melt (AM 85.1082-1086).

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