New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

The "ontogeny of minerals" is the study of individual crystals and their aggregates as physical bodies ("minor mineral bodies") rather than as mineral species. The genetic approach to mineral¬ogy has been developed in Russia over the last 80 yrs but is poorly understood (if at all) in the West. Although ontogeny as a subject had its origins in the Russian mining industry, caves prove to be ideal settings for ontogeny studies because, although there are few common mineral species in caves (mainly calcite, aragonite, and gypsum), there is a great variety in the speleothem forms that these minerals can take. This paper introduces the basic principles of minerals ontogeny and explains a hierarchy classification scheme whereby mineral bodies can be studied as crystal individuals, aggregates of individuals, association of aggregates (termed koras by the Russians), and as sequences of koras (ensembles).

Although the discussion will focus on the classification and selection mechanisms of cave minerals and speleothems, these concepts will also be shown to be applicable to non-cave mineralogy subjects: 1) to crystal linings growing into free space within ore cavities (of prime interest to the mineral collector), 2) to the origin of ore veins (not the "traditional" view of druse growth along open spaces within cracked rock), 3) to the concept of "colloidal gels" for substances such as agate (really spherocrystals split down to the molecular level), and 4) to the interpretation of certain diagenetic textures within carbonate rocks (split-crystal growth within bedrock pore spaces due to an evaporative environment). The importance of minerals ontogeny is that, just by looking at a mineral occurrence, its genetic environment of deposition can usually be deduced from ontogenological principles.