Review
Version 1
This version is not peer-reviewed
Chiral Minerals
Version 1
: Received: 7 August 2024 / Approved: 7 August 2024 / Online: 7 August 2024 (23:18:11 CEST)
How to cite: Avnir, D. Chiral Minerals. Preprints 2024, 2024080524. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.0524.v1 Avnir, D. Chiral Minerals. Preprints 2024, 2024080524. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.0524.v1
Abstract
Hundreds of minerals are chiral, that is, they appear in nature in two forms – left-handed and right-handed. Yet except for quartz, that key structural property remained, by-and-large in the shadow of the world of minerals in research, in museum displays, and for collectors. This review is devoted for providing a full picture of chiral minerals in nature. It starts with a general outline of the crystallographic background needed for the characterization of chiral minerals, continues with a detailed description of the many chemical and physical processes leading to their formation, follows with their chemical reactivities and transformations, with their physical properties, and with the ways to analyze and identify them. Many tables with listings of the various types of chiral minerals, are provided. It is hoped that this review will spark interest in this aspect nature’s crystals.
Keywords
chirality; enantiomorphs; minerals; space-groups; formation; properties
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Geology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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