The standardisation of mineral group hierarchies: application to recent nomenclature proposals

There are many ways which are in current use to help with the classification of minerals, such as: Dana’s New Mineralogy (Gaines et al., 1997), the Strunz classification (Strunz & Nickel, 2001), A Systematic Classification of Minerals (Ferraiolo, 2003) and the various volumes of Deer, Howie and Zussman (Rock-forming Minerals series), which use combinations of mineral structure and chemical composition to classify minerals. There is also Fleischer’s Glossary of Minerals (Mandarino, 1999; Back & Mandarino, 2008) which lists ‘groups’ of minerals in the back section of the glossary. All are useful aids, however, there has been no systematic approach to mineral group naming or a definite hierarchical system put in place. There is also no system for the proposal and approval of mineral groups and group names.

In the past, some mineral groups have been referred to by different names and some mineral species have been proposed as members of more than one group. This proposal aims to standardise group nomenclature by introducing a hierarchy in which to classify mineral species (applied to recent nomenclature proposals) and to introduce a new procedure for the approval of new mineral groups. The following proposal has been approved by the IMA Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names prior to publication (Voting Proposal 09–A).