Research on Mineral Components of Albite Jade Base on Advanced Technology

It is widely considered that albite jade is mainly composed of albite, actinolite, chlorite, epidote, quartz, jadeite, etc.However, in-depth analysis of mineral components in albite jade is lacking, and relative knowledge is incomprehensive.The gemmological characteristics, mineral components, texture feature and degree of order of albite jade are studied in this paper.Refering to division of varieties in jadeite, the albite jade according to its basement and colour, can be classified into five kinds:(1) Icy-like albite jade; (2) Icy-like albite jade with "blue flower"; (3) Green albite jade with white basement; (4) Cottonrose-like albite jade; (5) Dark-green albite jade.The mineral components of albite jade are studied by using many kinds of analytical methods, such as conventional gemmological methods, polarizing microscope, electron microprobe and X-ray powder diffraction.The results show that the refractive index of the albite jade is about 1.51-1.53 (point measurement) and amphibole part is about 1.63 (point measurement).The common colour of albite jade is colourless, white, green, grayish-green, yellow, brown, etc.None of the varieties have obvious ultraviolet fluorescence.The crystal morphologies of mineral under polarizing microscope are mainly hypidiomorphic or allotriomorphic granular, short prismatic and fibrous, and the textures are mainly the mylonitic and fibrous granular crystalloblastic textures.Albite contained in albite jade often shows following structure types:tabular, foliaceous, isometric granular and sugar granular.Polysynthetic twin is common and twin lamellae is clear.The white veins or tinea spots in it are often composed of jadeite.The jadeite in colourless and transparent albite jade presents white grains or masses and takes the shape of white foams, which is also white and granulous and short prismatic under polarizing microscope.Amphibole is found in the icy-like albite jade with "blue flower", dark-green and green albite jade with white basement ("Maw-sit-sit" jade), which is of dark-green phenocryst and light green fibrous and long column.The slices of the samples are observed and 50probe-testing points are circled, the ionic numbers are analyzed and calculated.For the calculation of crystalchemical formulate, cationic method is used.Electronic valence balance (Fe³⁺, Fe²⁺) is applied to categorize pyroxene and amphibole.The main mineral component of Albite jade is albite and the accessory minerals are richterite, magnesiokatophorite, edenite, jadeite, omphacite and kosmochlor, with minor accessory strontium carbonate, chromite and hematite.This paper doubts that the minerals of "blue flower" in albite jade are chlorite and epidote.The authors confirm the minerals from those parts are omphacite and amphibole by means of EPMA and XRD.The results of XRD show that the order degree of albite is 1or very close to 1, so the albite is completely ordered or very close to be fully ordered, which indicates that the formation temperature of albite jade is very low.