Sulfate Minerals

Book excerpt: Volume 40 of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry compiles and synthesizes current information on sulfate minerals from a variety of perspectives, including crystallography, geochemical properties, geological environments of formation, thermodynamic stability relations, kinetics of formation and dissolution, and environmental aspects. The first two chapters cover crystallography (Chapter 1) and spectroscopy (Chapter 2). Environments with alkali and alkaline earth sulfates are described in the next three chapters, on evaporites (Chapter 3), barite-celestine deposits (Chapter 4), and the kinetics of precipitation and dissolution of gypsum, barite, and celestine (Chapter 5). Acidic environments are the theme for the next four chapters, which cover soluble metal salts from sulfide oxidation (Chapter 6), iron and aluminum hydroxysulfates (Chapter 7), jarosites in hydrometallugy (Chapter 8), and alunite-jarosite crystallography, thermodynamics, and geochronology (Chapter 9). The next two chapters discuss thermodynamic modeling of sulfate systems from the perspectives of predicting sulfate-mineral solubilities in waters covering a wide range in composition and concentration (Chapter 10) and predicting interactions between sulfate solid solutions and aqueous solutions (Chapter 11). The concluding chapter on stable-isotope systematics (Chapter 12) discusses the utility of sulfate minerals in understanding the geological and geochemical processes in both high- and low-temperature environments, and in unraveling the past evolution of natural systems through paleoclimate studies. The review chapters in this volume were the basis for a short course on sulfate minerals sponsored by the Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) November 11-12, 2000 in Tahoe City, California, prior to the Annual Meeting of MSA, the Geological Society of America, and other associated societies in nearby Reno, Nevada. The conveners of the course (and editors of this volume of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry), Alpers, John Jambor, and Kirk Nordstrom, also organized related topical sessions at the GSA meeting on sulfate minerals in both hydrothermal and low-temperature environments.