The crystal chemistry of ten hydroxyl fluorapatite crystals from the Tapira alkaline carbonatitic complex (Brazil) was investigated by electron microprobe, ion microprobe, infrared spectroscopy and single crystal X-ray diffraction. Apatite crystals are characterized by modest REE and a very low Cl content. They exhibit the following compositional range in atoms per formula unit 9.935 ≤ Ca ≤ 10.024, 5.926 ≤ P ≤ 6.006, 0.005 ≤ REE ≤ 0.046, 0.422 ≤ F ≤ 0.914, 0.003 ≤ Cl ≤ 0.008, 0.003 ≤ Si ≤ 0.038; Na is present in trace.

Crystal structure refinements were carried out in space group P63/m, (R values varies between 0.016 and 0.028). The REE for Ca substitution requires two different exchange mechanisms producing an increase in the bond valence on the X anionic site: the deprotonation of OH and/or the substitution of CO2-3 for OH. The CO2-3 substitution in the anionic sites of investigated structures was related to great CO2 activity of the melt whereas deprotonation of the apatite crystals could be related to the highly oxidizing nature of the Tapira carbonatitic magma. The very low Cl/F ratio suggests that the crystallization of Tapira pluton was relatively shallow. The determination of REE partitioning between the Ca1 and Ca2 sites is difficult because of the low REE content. A proportional increase in the size of the Ca1 and Ca2 sites was observed with increasing REE content as well as an overall increase of a parameter.

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