Ophirite, Mineral of the Year 2014
We are pleased to announce that for 2014 the “Mineral of the Year” award has been assigned to ophirite.
Ophirite, Ca2Mg4[Zn2Mn23+(H2O)2(Fe3+W9O34)2]·46H2O, is a new mineral species from the Ophir Hill Consolidated mine, Ophir district, Oquirrh Mountains, Tooele County, Utah, USA, and was described by Anthony R. Kampf of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and co-authors: John M. Hughes (University of Vermont), Barbara P. Nash (University of Utah), Stephen E. Wright (Miami University), George R. Rossman (Caltech), and Joe Marty (Utah) (Kampf et al., 2014). Ophirite forms beautiful, orange-brown tablet-shaped crystals up to 1 mm in length and is the first known mineral to contain a lacunary defect derivative of the Keggin anion, i.e. a heteropolyanion missing some of its octahedral segments (Keggin, 1934). Phases with the Keggin anion are important in solid state chemistry as a catalyst (e.g. Sun et al., 2009).
Kampf AR, Hughes JM, Nash BP, Wright SE, Rossman GR, Marty J (2014) Ophirite, Ca2Mg4[Zn2Mn23+(H2O)2(Fe3+WO34)2]·46H2O, a new mineral with a heteropolytungstate tri-lacunary Keggin anion. American Mineralogist 99: 1045-1051
Keggin JF (1934) The structure and formula of 12-phosphotungstic acid. Proceedings of the Royal Society A 144: 75-100
Sun CY, Liu SX, Liang DD, Shao K9Z, Ren YH, Su ZM (2009) Highly stable crystalline catalysts based on a microporous metal−organic framework and polyoxometalates. Journal of the American Chemical Society 131: 1883-1888