Ye'elimite (white) intergrown with Hydroxylellestadite (reddish-brown) in grey Anhydrite (Picture size 6 mm) Locality: Ronneburg, Thuringia, Germany — Photo: Thomas Witzke · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Ye'elimite
Ye'elimite is the naturally occurring form of anhydrous calcium sulfoaluminate, Ca4(AlO2)6SO4. It gets its name from Har Ye'elim in Israel in the Hatrurim Basin west of the Dead Sea where it was first found in nature by Shulamit Gross, an Israeli mineralogist and geologist who studied the Hatrurim Formation. The mineral is cubic, with 16 formula units per unit cell, and a cell dimension of 1.8392 nm, and is readily detected and quantified in mixtures by powder x-ray diffraction.
Intro adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Ye'elimite is an IMA-recognized mineral species in the sulfate class, with the chemical formula Ca₄Al₆O₁₂(SO₄).
It crystallizes in the cubic crystal system (space group I-43m).
Key properties: specific gravity 2.61.
IMA symbol Ye, IMA status: approved, named in 1984.
Found in a high-temperature (> 900 ° C) metamorphic assemblage in cobbles in a pseudo-conglomerate.
It is found associated with Larnite, brownmillerite, sulfatian-phosphatian fluorapatite.
The name refers to Har Ye’elim and Nahal Ye’elim, the most conspicuous hill and wadi in the Hatrurim Basin, Israel.