Quantitative Data File for Ore Minerals

"The Quantitative Data File for Ore Minerals" (QDF) is the most complete compilation of linked compositional and reflectance data available today. Produced under the auspices of the Commission on Ore Mineralogy of the International Mineralogical Association (COM-IMA), with the support of the Natural History Museum, London, this, the third edition of the File, contains reference data for 505 mineral species and for a further 130 compositional or structural variants or varieties. Many of the data, which were contributed by scientists from 19 countries, were obtained specifically for the QDF and have not been published elsewhere. They include quantitative data for minerals which had previously been poorly characterized and for many recently described new minerals. In addition to the more comprehensive species coverage for the sulphides, sulphosalts, tellurides, selenides, platinum group minerals etc., more than twice as many oxides are represented as in QDF2.As with QDF2, the data are in tabular form, organized alphabetically, one mineral to a page, but, in QDF3, these are supplemented by graphs of the reflectance spectra, thus enabling rapid assessment of the colour of a mineral and, if present, its bi-reflectance and reflectance pleochroism. Three "keys" or indexes provide the means for preliminary identification by comparison with the reflectance and colour data. As a reference work, it directly relates, in almost all of its entries, the chemical composition of a mineral with its optical properties. Confirmatory X-ray data are referred to the PDF of the JCPDS or to the original source of the powder data, and, in most instances, micro-indentation hardness (VHN) numbers are supplied. This book should be of interest to professional ore geologists and mineralogists.