Almandine

Almandine, or almandite, is a name applied to certain kinds of precious garnet Garnet

The garnet group of mineral [i]s show crystal [i]s with a habit of rhombic dodecahedron [i]s and trapezohedron [i] ...

, being apparently a corruption of alabandicus, which is the name applied by Pliny the Elder Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author [i] and natural philosopher [i] ...

to a stone found or worked at Alabanda, a town in Caria in Asia Minor Anatolia

Anatolia is a region of Southwest Asia [i] which corresponds today to the Asiatic portion of Turkey [i] ...

. Almandine is an iron alumina garnet, of deep red color, inclining to purple. It is frequently cut with a convex face, or en cabochon, and is then known as carbuncle. Viewed through the spectroscope in a strong light, it generally shows three characteristic absorption bands. Almandine is one end-member of a mineral solid solution Solid solution

A solid solution is a solid [i]-state [i] solution [i] of one or more solutes [i] in a solvent [i] ...

series, with the other end member being the garnet pyrope.

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Almandine, or almandite, is a name applied to certain kinds of precious garnet Garnet

A solid solution is a solid [i]-state [i] solution [i] of one or more solutes [i] in a solvent [i] ...

series, with the other end member being the garnet pyrope. The almandine crystal formula is: Fe₃Al₂₃. Magnesium Magnesium

Magnesium is the chemical element [i] in the periodic table [i] that has the symbol Mg and atomic number [i] ...

substitutes for the iron Iron

Iron is a chemical element [i] with the symbol Fe and atomic number [i] 26. ...

with increasingly pyrope-rich composition.

Almandine occurs rather abundantly in the gem-gravels of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is a tropical [i] island nation [i] ...

, whence it has sometimes been called Ceylon-ruby. When the color inclines to a violet tint, the stone is often called Syrian garnet, a name said to be taken from Syriam, an ancient town of Pegu. Large deposits of fine almandine-garnets were found, some years ago, in the Northern Territory of South Australia Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere [i] c ...

, and were at first taken for rubies and thus they were known in trade for some time afterwards as Australian rubies.

Almandine is widely distributed. Fine rhombic dodecahedra Dodecahedron

A dodecahedron is any polyhedron [i] with twelve faces, but usually a regular dodecahedron is mean ...

occur in the schist Schist

The schists form a group of medium-grade metamorphic rock [i]s, chiefly notable for the preponderance of...

ose rocks of the Zillertal, in Tyrol, and are sometimes cut and polished. An almandine in which the ferrous oxide is replaced partly by magnesia is found at Luisenfeld in German East Africa. In the United States United States

The United States of America, also known as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., a...

there are many localities which yield almandine. Fine crystals of almandine embedded in mica Mica

The mica group of sheet silicate [i] minerals [i] includes several closely related materials hav ...

-schist occur near Fort Wrangell in Alaska Alaska

Alaska is a U.S. state [i], located on the northwest tier [i] of North America [i] ...

. The coarse varieties of almandine are often crushed for use as an abrasive agent.

Almandine

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