HRTEM of antigorite: The structure as a polysomatic series
Antigorite is one of the serpentine minerals, a group of 1:1 layer silicates with the approximate composition of Mg3Si2O5(OH)4. These minerals display an unusual variety of crystal structures even though they are almost identical in composition; chrysotile has an elongated-tube structure, lizardite occurs as flat plates, and antigorite has corrugates layers.The details of the crystal structures of the serpentine minerals are not completely known. Threedimensional structure refinements only exist for one- and two- layer lizardite. For antigorite, the only direct structural information consists of a two-dimensional Fourier synthesis of hOI diffractions. The lack of detailed structural data on these minerals arises from the complexity of the structures as well as the paucity of sufficiently large, well-formed single crystals. In addition, structural disorder is common in these minerals, making structure refinement difficult.High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) has been used to study antigorite in order to discriminate among various structural models of antigorite and to characterize its microstructures