Titanite encircling illmenite in an amphibolite-facies metabasalt.

#ThinSectionThursday #Metamorphic #Titanite

Repost from last year: A titanite lozenge imaged both using a cellphone through the microscope ocular, and with a proper imaging system. It's surrounded mostly by quartz (+feldspar).
Likely from the Grenville, but from a teaching collection two generations of retired professors ago.

Titanite can be part of the record of temperature, pressure, and timing of crystallization.

#MinCup25 #Titanite #Grenville #Canada

Lovely sphene, wonderful spheeene! Lovely sphene, wonderful spheeene! Sphene! Sphene! Sphene! Sphene! #MinCup25 #titanite #kosmochlor

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:r6drdfmf5fzdtvuacnfmfiga/post/3lzcmyy75bs2u
#MinCup25 Round 2 Match 5: We’re going for namesake-minerals as bright meteorite-derived green #kosmochlor is up against the wedge-shaped indicator mineral #titanite.

Vote: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r2m05
Results: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/results/r2m05
Vote in Round 2 Match 5 — Mineral Cup

Click here to vote in Kosmochlor vs Titanite Photo credits: Knut Eldjarn and Robert M. Lavinsky

Mineral Cup

Reposted from bsky:
A hand-ground section of tephrite from Kaiserstuhl Volcanic Complex showing #Titanite

#MinCup25 #ThinSectionThursday

Garnets swimming in a beautiful sea of #Titanite, as seen with a petrographic microscope in plane and cross polarized light, Franciscan Complex, California. The garnets in the field of view are nearly completely surrounded by titanite. Photo by Sarah Brandt. #MinCup25
#Titanite twinning as seen under plane and cross polarized light with a petrographic microscope in a metamorphic rock from the Franciscan Complex, California. Field of view about 2 mm. Photo by Sarah Brandt. #MinCup25

AlexStrekeisen.it (run by Alessandro Da Mommio) has some beautiful thin section images of titanite:

https://www.alexstrekeisen.it/english/pluto/titanite.php

#MinCup25 #ThinSectionThursday #Titanite #Sphene #Granite #Mineralogy

Repost from last year:
I've seen sphene! (Sounds better than "the rock is tippsy with titanite")

Centimeter-size black sphene (titanite) with apatite (dark brown) and orthoclase feldspar (light brown). Folding pocket knife for scale.

From the Bancroft locality in Ontario, Canada. Grenville-aged (~1.2± billion years)

#MinCup25 #Titanite #Sphene #Bancroft #Ontario #Geology #Grenville

#MinCup25 Round 1 Match 11: It's a pair of T-minerals with as versatile #Titanite faces off against the home of rare earth elements #Thortveitite.

VOTE: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1m11

Check results: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/results/r1m11

Vote in Round 1 Match 11 — Mineral Cup

Click here to vote in Titanite vs Thortveitite Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution

Mineral Cup