EQUILIBRIUM SHAPES OF REAL CRYSTALS OF COEXISTING MINERALS

Abstract

The value of analyzing the morphology of mineral crystals and of determining their equilibrium shapes as a point of reference for such an analysis is difficult to overestimate, since it offers the potential for real progress in understanding the evolution of minerageneting systems. The development of an approach that makes use of empirical series of shapes of mineral crystals and is based on the phenomenon of shape correspondence have created the need for a thermodynamic interpretation of shape correspondence within the framework of the theory of equilibrium shape. In the present paper the authors present a thermodynamic analysis of the equilibrium shapes of crystals of two polymorphic modifications that coexist in solution.