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Diopside

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diopside

Common silicate mineral in the pyroxene family. Diopside is a calcium and magnesium silicate (CaMgSi2O6) that occurs in metamorphosed siliceous limestones and dolomites, in skarns, and in igneous rocks. It is also found in small amounts in many chondritic meteorites. Clear specimens of good green colour are sometimes cut as gems.


diopside [dī′äp‚sīd]
(mineralogy)
CaMg(SiO3)2A white to green monoclinic pyroxene mineral which forms gray to white, short, stubby, prismatic, often equidimensional crystals. Also known as malacolite.

Diopside 

a rock-forming mineral, a silicate of the group of monoclinic pyroxenes. Its chemical composition is CaMg[Si2O6]; part of the Mg can be replaced by Fe2+. Gray to grayish-green in color, it has a hardness on the mineralogical scale of 5.5-6 and a density of 3,270-3,400 kg/m3. Diopside is usually encountered as irregularly shaped grains with a good cleavage in gabbro, diabase, diorite, syenite, skarn, and other igneous and metamorphic rocks. More rarely it forms large transparent green crystals (so-called baikalite).



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Top blog: Diopside provides an interesting article on new developments and talking heads in the resurgent commodity boom in the KIM Report blog.
A few, glinting blue-white diamonds' translucent aquamarine the colour of a Caribbean sea' rainbow opals' vibrantly green Russian diopside, a match for the finest emeralds' and, my all-time favourite, five perfectly matched, perfectly cut fiery garnets, red as the blood I feel I have on my hands.
Kimberlite is a host rock to diamonds, but not a source rock: Kimberlite indicator minerals consist of pyrope and eclogitic garnets, magnesian ilmenite, chromite, chorine diopside, forsteritic olivine and diamond and the presence of these minerals is used to determine the proximity of diamond-bearing kimberlites.
 
 
 
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