ALKALI FELDSPAR

any of several common silicate minerals that often occur as variously coloured, glassy crystals. They are used in the manufacture of glass and ceramics; transparent, highly coloured, or iridescent varieties are sometimes used as gemstones. The alkali feldspars are primarily important as constituents of rocks; they are very widespread and abundant in alkali and acidic igneous rocks (particularly syenites, granites, and granodiorites), in pegmatites, and in gneisses. The alkali feldspars may be regarded as mixtures of sodium aluminosilicate (NaAlSi3O8) and potassium aluminosilicate (KAlSi3O8). Both the sodium and potassium aluminosilicates have several distinct forms, each form with a different structure. The forms stable at high temperatures include high-albite (sodium) and sanidine and high-sanidine (potassium); these have a random distribution of aluminum and silicon atoms in their crystal structure. Low-temperature forms include albite (sodium) and orthoclase and microcline (potassium); these have an ordered arrangement of such atoms. If specimens of the high-temperature varieties are rapidly cooled, the random distribution is preserved. In the Earth's crust the alkali feldspars display a range of ordering from the fully random distribution of high-sanidine, through sanidine and orthoclase, to the fully ordered distribution of microcline. See feldspar.