Beryl

May be confused with apatite. The largest beryl crystal reported was 18 m long and 3.5 m wide from Malakialina, Madagascar, but in the absence of anything more than a personal communication, the report is doubtful. Microporous beryl (and cordierite) may contain some molecular N2 (Bebout et al., 2006). Cordierite and (especially) its HT-polymorph indialite are somewhat structurally similar to beryl. As of April 2023 there's a new link between the two, in the form of beryllocordierite-Na and beryllosachanbińskiite-Na, which suggests a possible merge of the two "families" of compounds.

History

Activities related to discovery and approval of the group members

Structural context

Beryl
Crystal System hexagonalCrystal Class dihexagonal dipyramidalSpace Group P6/mcc
a9.127—9.292 (9.2237)
b9.127—9.292 (9.2237)
c9.064—9.264 (9.1999)
alpha90
beta90
gamma120
volume653.893—687.792 (677.8512)

Based on 86 measurements

Chemical context

Stoichiometric formulas

Beryl
mindat.org
  • March 13, 2023Be3Al2(Si6O18)
IMA
  • March 13, 2023Be3Al2Si6O18
mineralogy.rocks
  • Aug. 30, 2022Be3Al2Si6O18

Elements recorded on EPMA

82
Al
82
Be
82
O
82
Si
67
Na
56
Fe
47
Li
41
Cs
35
Mg
24
H
23
K
20
Mn
15
Ca
10
Rb
6
Cr
6
Cu
1
Sc
1
Ti
1
V

Physical properties

ColorColor entities, recognized using a custom trained NER model
  • colorless
            Color noteOriginal color note from the source
            Colorless, green, blue, yellow, white, pink, etc.
            StreakStreak entities, recognized using a custom trained NER model
              Streak noteOriginal streak note from the source
              White
              Lustre
              Vitreous
              Sub-Vitreous
              Waxy
              Greasy
              Fracture
              Conchoidal
              Tenacity
              brittle
              Hardness
              7.5—8
              Measured density
              2.63—2.92