Oral Presentation 26th ACMM “2020 Visions in Microscopy”

Aberration-corrected HRSTEM characterization of sulphosalt minerals (#46)

Wei Li 1 , Cristiana L Ciobanu 2 , Ashley D Slattery 3 , Nigel J Cook 2 , Wenyuan Liu 4 , Benjamin P Wade 3 , Guiqing Xie 4
  1. Key Laboratory of Metallogeny and Mineral Assessment, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing, China
  2. School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  3. The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  4. College of Zijin Mining, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China

High-angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF STEM) is a powerful Z-contrast technique able to depict the structural motifs in Pb-(Bi-Sb)-sulfosalts. Using two homologues from the kobellite homologous series, a group of “chessboard derivative structures” represented by Bi- and Sb-rich pairs of natural phases, we visualise the units which underpin the complex crystal structure modularity in these minerals.

High resolution STEM imaging reveals nano-scale intergrowths and replacement throughout the mineral, which are used to explain compositional variation of this mineral at the micron-scale.

  1. Li, W., Ciobanu, C., Slattery, A., et al. (2019). Chessboard structures: Atom-scale imaging of homologs from the kobellite series. American Mineralogist, 104(3), pp. 459-462. Retrieved 30 Sep. 2019, from doi:10.2138/am-2019-6860