Talk:Pyroxene

Geology Mid‑importance

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I have started adding to the pyroxenes and could use some guidence on the best way to proceed on all the solid solution series. This is clearly a huge group and there will be a lot of repatition if each mineral has its own page. What I sugest is that each serese gets its own page (e.g. the Enstatite - Ferrosilite series, the diopside - hedenbergite series etc) Each page can then cover the geology and mineraology in a consistent way. If this sounds like a sensible option do we need redirects from each minerals page to a new page for the series. Your thoughts please! - andreww 8/12/2004

Sounds like a sensible approach to me. I've just re-organized the pyroxenes a bit in Silicate minerals. Hope this can help your project. Modelled after Hurlbut, Cornelius S.; Klein, Cornelis, 1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed.
Three basic series to work with, plus a couple of odd ones: (Pigeonite & Spodumene)

Enstatite - orthoferrosilite series

Diopside - hedenbergite series

Sodium pyroxene series

also the Pyroxenoid group if your still going :-)

Have fun -Vsmith 01:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Error in ternary diagram

Posted by 66.31.245.69 to the main article page, moved here by User:nneonneo

IMPORTANT NOTE: The ternary diagram here of the pyroxene group is incorrect; it lists Hedenbergite as FeCaSi2O, when really it is FeCaSi2O6. I Don't know how to correct this without creating a whole new picture file, so if whoever made this could please correct that, it would be nice to have proper mineral formulas. Thank you.

nneonneo ^talk 23:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected and converted to SVG. Thanks for noticing it. nneonneo ^talk 02:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Formula

I encountered here the formula XY(Si,Al)₂SiO₆. I don't understand why this bastardized chemical formula is given.I suggest M¹M²(Si, Al)₂SiO₆ where M¹ is..." Also get rid of the Fe(II) and Fe(III) or alternatively label all of the transition metals' oxidation states (Cr, Co, Mn, etc). I don't know of any valid reason to pay special attention to the Fe ions. Speaking of ions. Co (for instance) does NOT represent an ion. It represents a chemical element. Editors should distinguish between "ions of Co, Zn, ..." and formulas containing the chemical species Co, Zn,... (with unspecified Ox. States) Finally, it is absurd to have XY and then allow that X might be Y. What!? Yeah, use of the letter Y in THE SAME FORMULA to represent two distinct things (Yttrium and a set of metals) is hilarious. I hope this is original research on the part of an editor and doesn't occur in the literature! LOL! 98.21.88.244 (talk) 00:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The general formulae for pyroxenes used in this Wikipedia article are XY(Si,Al)₂O₆ (not your XY(Si,Al)₂SiO₆) and XYT₂O₆ (where the character "T" represents the character strings "Si" or "Al").

Which pyroxene mineral has yttrium (whose chemical element symbol is Y) in its chemical formula (i.e. not an occasional trace element impurity) that would make a pyroxene general formula of XY(Si,Al)₂O₆ problematic?

Some of the very many sources that use the very similar general formula XYZ₂O₆ for pyroxenes (where the character "Z" represents the character strings "Si" or "Al") are:

Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia of Geology (2nd edition) (2021)

Klein, C. (1999) "Manual of Mineralogy" (21st edition)

Other sources use a very similar general formula of XY(Z₂O₆) e.g.

Blackburn and Dennen (1988) "Principles of Mineralogy"

I suggest that one reason why these XY versions of the pyroxene general formula use X instead of M2, and Y instead of M1, could be that it prevents people confusing M2 for M²⁺ or M₂.

- GeoWriter (talk) 18:34, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]