Anomalies in the analytical determination of water in epidote

Extract

Numerous veins and veinlets of epidosite traverse the crystalline schists and associated igneous rocks of the Malvern complex. They art fine-grained, compact rocks, of uniform texture and pale greenish-yellow colour, and vary in composition from almost pure epidote to mixtures of epidote with small quantities of quartz, sphene, sericitic mica, apatite, and, in almost insignificant amount, albite.

Analytical investigation of these rocks revealed the fact that the epidote they contain holds its water more tenaciously than has hitherto been suspected : the determination of water-content by the methods usually applied to the analysis of rocks and minerals gave results which were so seriously low as to suggest that the mineral was essentially anhydrous. Though more drastic methods increased the yield considerably, they failed to liberate more than about 75 % of the amount of water which, theoretically, should be present.