Effects of fluorine on the solubilities of Nb, Ta, Zr and Hf minerals in highly fluxed water-saturated haplogranitic melts

The effect of fluorine on the solubilities of Mn-columbite (MnNb2O6), Mn-tantalite (MnTa2O6), zircon (ZrSiO4) and hafnon (HfSiO4) were determined in highly fluxed, water-saturated haplogranitic melts at 800 to 1000°C and 2kbar. The melt composition corresponds to the intersection of the granite minimum with the albite-orthoclase tieline (Ab72Or28) in the quartz-albite-orthoclase system (Q-Ab-Or), which is representative of a highly fluxed melt, from which high field strength element minerals may crystallize. The melt contains 1.7wt.% P2O5, 1.05wt.% Li2O and 1.83wt.% B2O3. The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of F on columbite, tantalite, zircon and hafnon solubility for a melt with this composition. Up to 6wt.% fluorine was added as AgF in order to keep the aluminum saturation index (ASI, molar Al/[Na+K]) of the melt constant. In an additional experiment F was added as AlF3 to make a glass peraluminous. The nominal ASI of the melts are close to 1 for the minimum composition and approximately 1.32 in peraluminous glasses, but if Li is considered as an alkali, the molar ratio Al/[Na+K+Li] of the melts are alkaline (0.87) and subaluminous (1.09), respectively. The molar solubility products [MnO]*[Nb2O5] and [MnO]*[Ta2O5] are nearly independent of the F content of the melt, at approximately 18.19±1.2 and 43.65±2.5×10-4 (mol2/kg2), respectively for the minimum composition. By contrast, there is a positive dependence of zircon and hafnon solubilities on the fluorine content in the minimum composition, which increases from 2.03±0.03×10-4 (mol/kg) ZrO2 and 4.04±0.2×10-4 (mol/kg) HfO2 for melts with 0wt.%F to 3.81±0.3×10-4 (mol/kg) ZrO2 and 6.18±0.04×10-4 (mol/kg) HfO2 for melts with 8wt.%F. Comparison of the data from this work and previous studies indicates that ASI of the melt seems to have a stronger effect than the contents of fluxing elements in the melt and the overall conclusion is that fluorine is less important (relative to melt compositions) tha