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Download hereGENERAL DESCRIPTION
Titanite (in the past named sphene) is a titanium and calcium silicate. This is a mineral formed in the granitic pegmatites and the alpine veins.
It generally occurs as flattened crystals, whose edges are sharp.
Its crystals are transparent and with a strong lustre. They are generally of yellow-green color (color which characterizes the alpine veins) but can also be red-brown (in pegmatites).
It is a rather frequent mineral in many cristalines rocks as microscopic crystals. The most remarkable crystals of this species come from the Hohe the Tauern Mountains in Austria (gemmy yellow-green crystals). One finds it also elsewhere in the Alps, in Switzerland, Italy and France but also in other similar in Pakistan (Gilgit).
Twinned crystals weighing up to 36 kg were found near the lake Clear-Kuelhl in Canada. Gemmy varieties are known in Sri Lanka and it abounds in the skarns of the USA (States of New York and California), of Renfrew (Ontario, Canada), of Capelinha in Brazil, Russia (Kola peninsula), Madagascar... Titanite is also known in the silico-calcic enclaves produced by the Vesuvius volcano (Italy).
In France, if titanite is present in many areas, one will quote the superb crystals of Saint-Nabor in Haut-Rhin; the Lorian pass in the Cantal; the Chassagne mines and in the Riou Pezzouliou alluvia in Haute-Loire (among so much of others).
The place of conservation of the type of this species is unknown.
HISTORY : Name given because of its composition, bearing titanium
Species first described in 1795 by Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817), German professor of chemistry, University of Berlin
Type-locality : Passau, Bavaria, Germany
ANCIENT NAME : Sphène
CHEMICAL FORMULA : Ca Ti SiO5
CRYSTAL SYSTEM : Monoclinic
COLOR : Colorless, yellow, green, gray, black
DIAPHANIETY : Transparent to opaque
LUSTER : Adamantine to resineous
STREAK : White
MORPHOLOGIE : Prismatic crystals, compact, flattened
HARDNESS : 5,0-5,5
CHEMICAL CLASS: 3,53
DENSITY : VIII - Silicates
GROUP : Titanite
STRUNZ CLASS BEFORE 2001 : 8/B.12-10
STRUNZ CLASS AFTER 2001 : 9.AG.15
