Calcioolivine has been included into the MDI mineral database in the list of grandfathered minerals. Its history, together
with related artificial compounds, is extremely complex: various minerals and compounds received this name, including natural
orthorhombic Ca orthosilicate. In this paper, the crystal structure and properties of natural calcioolivine are described
for the first time. The new mineral has been found at Mt. Lakargi, Upper Chegem Plateau, the northern Caucasus, Kabarda-Balkaria
Republic, Russia. It has been identified in skarnified, primary carbonate xenoliths entrained by middle to late Pliocene silicic
ignimbrites of the Upper Chegem caldera. These xenoliths of a few centimeters to a few meters in size are located close to
the volcanic vent. Calcioolivine rims relics of larnite and occurs as relict grains among crystals of spurrite, rondorfite,
wadalite or secondary hillebrandite, afwillite, thaumasite, and ettringite. Hillebrandite is the major product of alteration
of calcioolivine; larnite is relatively more resistant to low-temperature alteration. Spurrite, larnite, tilleyite, kilchoanite,
cuspidine, wadalite, rondorfite, reinhardbraunsite, lakargiite (CaZrO
3), members of ellestadite series, afwillite, ettringite, katoite, and thaumasite are associated minerals. It is inferred that
calcioolivine has been produced as a result of interaction of host carbonate rocks in xenoliths with volcanic lava and gases
during eruption. The name
calcioolivine was approved by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, International Mineralogical Association, September 6, 2007
(no. 07-B).
Original Russian Text © A.E. Zadov, V.M. Gazeev, N.N. Pertsev, E.R. Gobechiya, N.A. Yamnova, N.V. Chukanov, 2009, published
in Zapiski RMO (Proceedings of the Russian Mineralogical Society), 2009, Pt. CXXXVII, No. 6, pp. 46–57.
Considered by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, Russian Mineralogical Society, January 17, 2007. Approved
by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, International Mineralogical Association, September 6, 2007.