MINIDENT: a data base for minerals and a computer program for their identification.

Abstract

Minident is a programme for interactive mineral identification and mineral database management, rewritten in Fortran-77. Data have been stored for about 4000 mineral groups, species and varieties. These data comprise composition, optical properties, reflectance data at 470, 546, 589 and 650 nm, symmetry and space group, cell dimensions, density, Vickers and Mohs hardness, d-values and relative intensities for the strongest five powder XRD lines, the PDF number, polymorphs if any, occurrences, localities, year first described and sources of the data. The programme will generate a list of minerals whose properties lie within the input ranges for an unidentified mineral or display and rank 20 possible identities for an unknown. It can also be used to tabulate chosen properties of matched minerals or to tabulate minerals (in the database) that have certain specified properties.-R.I.G.