Beraunite crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system with point group 2/m. Beraunite's formula is Fe2+ Fe3+5(OH)5(PO4)4·4H2O. Aluminium and zinc may substitute in the structure.
It occurs as fibrous greenish-black to brown nodules. The chemical analysis of beraunite often show small and irrational amounts of ferrous iron. The chain segments in Beraunite are one and two octahedral in length. Beraunite has two different types which are Zn-rich and Al-rich Beraunites, those two types have variations in data between those taken by Krsano in the X-ray powder diffraction experiment and those in the literature.
Phosphate minerals have special characteristics about their chemical composition. The polyatomic complex of iron-oxygen octahedral face is sharing triplets corner to four other octahedral in the arrangement of atoms of the basic iron phosphates like dufrenite, rockbridgeite, and Beraunite. This complex is linked together by the phosphate tetrahedra.
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Blanchard and Denahan.(1968). Cacoxenite and Beraunite From Florida. American Mineralogist. 53,2099–2100.
Clifford Frondel. (1949). The dufrenite problem, American Mineralogist,34, 513–540.
Johan P.R.DE. Villiers.(1975). The Crystal Structure of Beraunite with Reference to Its Solid- Solution Behavior. American Mineralogist, 60,1103.
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