Spectroscopic standards for four- and fivefold-coordinated Fe 2+ in oxygen-based minerals

Optical spectra are presented for seven oxygen based, four-coordinated Fe 2+ bearing minerals, eudialyte, gehlenite, genthelvite, gillespite, pellyite, spinel, and staurolite, and two five-coordinated Fe 2+ minerals, grandidierite and joaquinite. Broad, intense spin-allowed dd bands of tetrahedrally coordinated Fe 2+ , originating from the 5E → 5 T 2 transition, appear in the spectral range 3000-7000 cm -1 . In the spectra of gillespite and eudialyte, minerals with square-planar coordination, the bands shift to higher energies, appearing in the range 7000-20 000 cm -1 . The amount of band splitting depends mainly on the distortion of the ligands surrounding four-coordinated Fe 2+ . Splitting and distortion are minimal for spinel with a regular tetrahedral site, and maximal for eudialyte and gillespite. For the minerals in four-coordination, the barycenter of the split bands correlates with the sum of the bond-length and edge-length distortion parameters if the square planer sites are excluded from the correlation. Molar absorption coefficients (ε) of the spin-allowed tetrahedral Fe 2+ bands range from ~20 cm -1 ·L·mol -1 to ~90 cm -1 ·L·mol -1 . For eudialyte and gillespite, due to the centrosymmetric character of the ligand environment, the e values ranges from about 0.5-10 cm -1 ·L·mol -1 . For grandidierite and joaquinite, five-coordination causes spectra that resemble those of Fe 2+ in highly distorted octahedral sites. The number of bands suggests, however, that the electronic level scheme of five-coordinated Fe 2+ in grandidierite significantly differs from that of Fe 2+ in octahedral coordination.