Advances in the Applications of Mössbauer Spectroscopy for Studies of Iron-Bearing Minerals

Dear Colleagues,

Various minerals contain iron cations which can occupy one or more crystallographic sites in these crystals. The iron chemical and physical states are some of the important characteristics of iron-bearing minerals which can influence the mineral structure and physical features. Metals, including iron, occupations of different crystallographic sites, and their redistributions with temperature are also very important in order to analyze the thermal history of minerals. Various extreme factors affecting terrestrial and extraterrestrial iron-bearing minerals, namely, high pressure, heating and reheating, cooling rate, impacts, etc., lead to some variations in the iron local microenvironments. ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy is one of the most sensitive physical techniques for the study of various iron-containing materials, including minerals. This technique permits analyzing the ⁵⁷Fe hyperfine parameters (isomer shift, quadrupole splitting/quadrupole shift, magnetic hyperfine field), the iron valence/spin states, dynamics of ⁵⁷Fe, relative iron contents in different sites, including iron partitioning variations, and in the minerals’ mixture, the ⁵⁷Fe local microenvironments and their transformations, etc. More than 60 years of experience demonstrate high potential and advances in the applications of Mössbauer spectroscopy in the studies of various minerals. This Special Issue aims to present reviews and original research papers in the field of Mössbauer spectroscopy of various iron-bearing terrestrial and extraterrestrial minerals to demonstrate advances in this technique.

Dr. Michael Oshtrakh
Guest Editor

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