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LITHOEN

Mineral

Dolomite

A calcium–magnesium carbonate with the two cations ordered into alternate layers — a structural distinction, not merely a compositional one.

Cut face of pale dolostone with dark brown to honey-coloured sphalerite occupying irregular patches that follow the rock fabric rather than open cavities.
Sulfide replacing carbonate in the Bonneterre Dolomite of southeast Missouri — the district the Mississippi Valley-type class is named after. The USGS model records that sulfides in these systems occur mainly as replacement of carbonate rocks and to a lesser extent as open-space fill; this is the first of those, at hand-specimen scale. Locality: Magmont Mine, New Lead Belt, near Bixby, Missouri, United States, as stated by the source.

James St. John, CC BY 2.0 · CC-BY-2.0 · source · Derivative: Downscaled to 1200 px wide by the Wikimedia thumbnail service; no cropping, no colour or content alteration.

Classification

formula
CaMg(CO3)2
ima status
grandfathered
crystal system
trigonal

How this record is known

3
Settled consensus
Cited as the accepted position of the discipline.

3 of 3 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.

What Lithoen records

Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.

EstablishedHexagonal

The Handbook of Mineralogy records the crystal data of dolomite as hexagonal.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Mineral Data Publishing 2001 Institutional reference

Established2.86 g/cm3

The Handbook of Mineralogy gives a measured density for dolomite of 2.86 g/cm3.

  • precision note: A reference value from a compiled data sheet, and for several species the midpoint or single figure of a published range.
  • method: Compiled from published measurements; Lithoen holds no measurement of its own.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Mineral Data Publishing 2001 Institutional reference

EstablishedCaMg(CO3)2

Dolomite is an accepted mineral species in the IMA List of Minerals, with the CNMNC-approved formula CaMg(CO3)2 and IMA status “grandfathered”.

  • definition basis: IMA List of Minerals, September 2026 update, which is the authority on mineral species status.
  • precision note: An approved formula is an idealised composition; natural crystals of most species depart from it through substitution.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification, International Mineralogical Association 2026 Primary authority

In the knowledge graph

Record last updated 2026-09-06. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.