Avdoninite, a new mineral species, has been found together with euchlorite, paratacamite, atacamite, belloite, and langbeinite
hosted in exhalation sediments of the Yadovitaya fumarole in the Second Cinder Cone at the Northern Breach of the Great Fissure
Tolbachik Eruption, Tolbachik volcano, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia. Avdoninite occurs as imperfect, short prismatic and thick
tabular crystals up to 0.2 mm long, with (001) and (100) forms, crystal aggregates, and pseudomorphs (together with atacamite)
after melanothallite observed. The new mineral is brittle, with the Mohs hardness 3 (for aggregates). Density is 3.03 g/cm
3 (meas.) and 3.066 g/cm
3 (calc.). Avdoninite is biaxial and optically neutral, with α = 1.669, β = 1.688, γ = 1.707, 2
V = −90°. Dispersion is not observed. Optical orientation:
Y = c, X = b? Pleochroism is absent. The infrared spectrum suggests the presence of water molecules in avdoninite. Electron microprobe
chemical analysis has given (wt %) K
2O 11.94 (±0.4), CuO 51.43 (±0.7), Cl 37.07 (±0.6), H
2O (determined by the Penfield method) 6.9, −O=Cl
2 −8.37, total 98.97. The empirical formula is K
1.96Cu
5.00Cl
8.09(OH)
3.87. · 1.03H
2O. Avdoninite is monoclinic, space group
P2/
m,
P2, or
Pm;
a = 24.34(2) Å,
b = 5.878(4) Å,
c = 11.626(5) Å, β = 93.3(1)°,
V = 1660.6(20) Å
3,
Z = 4. The compatibility index is good: 1 −
K
p/
K
c = 0.056 for
D
calc and 0.044 for
D
meas. The strongest lines in the X-ray powder diffraction pattern (
d, Å (
I, %) (
hkl)) are 11.63(100)(001), 5.88(20)(010), 5.80(27)(002), 5.73(17)(
[`1]\overline 1
02), 2.518(19)(21
[`4]\overline 4
), 2.321(17)(005). Avdoninite is identical to a technogenic analogue previously described from the Blyava volcanic-hosted
massive sulfide deposit, Orenburg oblast, Russia. The new mineral is named after Vladimir Nikolaevich Avdonin (born 1925),
a senior researcher of the Ural Geological Museum of the Ural State Mining University. The type material of avdoninite from
Kamchatka is deposited in the Mineralogical Museum of the Department of Mineralogy, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg,
Russia. The registration number is 19175.
Original Russian Text © N.V. Chukanov, M.N. Murashko, A.E. Zadov, A.F. Bushmakin, 2006, published in Zapiski Rossiiskogo Mineralogicheskogo
Obshchestva, 2006, Pt CXXXV, No. 3, pp. 38–42.
Considered by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, Russian Mineralogical Society, September 7, 2005. Approved
by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, International Mineralogical Association, December 5, 2005.