Mizzonite

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rock-forming silicate mineral belonging to the scapolite group, found in metamorphic rocks and named after a locality in Italy
2. A tectosilicate mineral of the scapolite family that forms in metamorphic and igneous rocks as a crystalline aluminosilicate
3. A crystalline aluminosilicate mineral in the scapolite group, typically occurring as prismatic crystals in metamorphic rock

Etymology: Mizzonite is a mineral name, and its origin lies in a mountain: it is named after Monte Mizzoni, a site in the Italian Alps (Mizzoni is in the Trentino/Lombardy border area near Monzoni, on the Fassa side of the Dolomites). Several minerals from the Monzoni region were described in the early nineteenth century, and mizzonite was named for the locality where specimens were found. It belongs to the scapolite group, a family of aluminosilicate minerals named by the German mineralogist Johann Friedrich Ludwig Hausmann, whose name for the group came from the Greek "skapos", meaning staff or shaft, a reference to the elongated crystal shape typical of these minerals. Mizzonite is the calcium-rich member of the series that runs between marialite and meionite, and its name records a place rather than a property of the crystal.