Nazarovite, Ni12P5, a new terrestrial and meteoritic mineral structurally related to
nickelphosphide, Ni3P
^1,2Sergey N. Britvin,¹Mikhail N. Murashko,¹Maria G. Krzhizhanovskaya,¹Oleg S. Vereshchagin,³Yevgeny Vapnik,⁴Vladimir V. Shilovskikh,⁵Maksim S. Lozhkin,⁶Edita V. Obolonskaya
American Mineralogist 107, 1946-1951 Link to Article [http://www.minsocam.org/msa/ammin/toc/2022/Abstracts/AM107P1946.pdf]
¹Institute of Earth Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya Nab. 7/9, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia
²Kola Science Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Fersman Str. 14, 184200 Apatity, Russia
³Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
⁴Centre for Geo-Environmental Research and Modeling, St. Petersburg State University, Ulyanovskaya ul. 1, 198504 St. Petersburg, Russia
⁵Nanophotonics Resource Centre, St. Petersburg State University, Ulyanovskaya ul. 1, 198504 St. Petersburg, Russia
⁶The Mining Museum, Saint Petersburg Mining University, 2, 21st Line, 199106 St. Petersburg, Russia
Copyright: The Mineralogical Society of America

Nazarovite, Ni12P5, is a new natural phosphide discovered on Earth and in meteorites. Terrestrial
nazarovite originates from phosphide assemblages confined to pyrometamorphic suite of the Hatrurim
Formation (the Mottled Zone), the Dead Sea basin, Negev desert, Israel. Meteoritic nazarovite was
identified among Ni-rich phosphide precipitates extracted from the Marjalahti meteorite (main group
pallasite). Terrestrial mineral occurs as micrometer-sized lamella intergrown with transjordanite (Ni2P).
Meteoritic nazarovite forms chisel-like crystals up to 8 μm long. The mineral is tetragonal, space
group I4/m. The unit-cell parameters of terrestrial and meteoritic material, respectively: a 8.640(1)
and 8.6543(3), c 5.071(3), and 5.0665(2) Å, V 378.5(2), and 379.47(3) Å3, Z = 2. The crystal structure
of terrestrial nazarovite was solved and refined on the basis of X-ray single-crystal data (R1 = 0.0516),
whereas the structure of meteoritic mineral was refined by the Rietveld method using an X-ray powder
diffraction profile (RB = 0.22%). The mineral is structurally similar to phosphides of schreibersite–
nickelphosphide join, Fe3P-Ni3P. Chemical composition of nazarovite (terrestrial/meteoritic, electron
microprobe, wt%): Ni 81.87/78.59, Fe <0.2/4.10; Co <0.2/0.07, P 18.16/17.91, total 100.03/100.67, leading to the empirical formula Ni11.97P5.03 and (Ni11.43Fe0.63Co0.01)12.07P4.94, based on 17 atoms per for- mula unit. Nazarovite formation in nature, both on Earth and in meteorites, is related to the processes of Fe/Ni fractionation in solid state, at temperatures below 1100 °C.