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