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Formula: Ca7(SiO4)3(CO3)
Nesosilicate (insular SiO4 groups)
Crystal system: Monoclinic
Specific gravity: 3.096 calculated
Hardness: 5
Streak: White
Colour: Colourless, white, pale grey
Environments
Localities
At the type locality, the Birkhin gabbro massif, Narin-Kunta, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, galuskinite occurs as a
retrograde product of skarn alteration found in
sanidinite facies
contact metamorphosed silicate carbonate xenoliths intruded by
gabbroid rocks.
Further minerals noted from the skarns include
calcio-olivine, larnite,
bredigite, merwinite,
monticellite, spinel,
magnetite,
gehlenite–åkermanite,
garnet of the grossular -
andradite - schorlomite -
kerimasite series,
kilchoanite, pavlovskyite,
cuspidine, baghdadite,
chlorbartonite, pyrrhotite,
hydroxylellestadite,
spurrite, clintonite,
fluorapatite and
hydroxylapatite,
hillebrandite, perovskite,
wollastonite, dellaite and
vesuvianite.
Galuskinite occurs in thin veins cutting calcio-olivine
skarn with relict larnite, in
which sporadic grains of bredigite,
gehlenite, cuspidine and
hydroxylellestadite are present. The central part of the veins
is composed of galuskinite. Pavlovskyite and
dellaite form a margin between the core and the
calcio-olivine skarn.
Galuskinite grains up to 0.5 mm in size are heavily fractured and twinned; both simple and polysynthetic twins
are found
(MM 75.5.2631-2648).
Galuskinite from the Birkhin Gabbro Massif -
Image
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