WinGadclas, a Windows program for gadolinite-supergroup minerals

A Microsoft^® Visual Basic software, WinGadclas, has been developed to calculate the chemical formulae of gadolinite supergroup minerals based on data obtained from wet-chemical and electron-microprobe analyses. WinGadclas currently evaluates 13 valid mineral species using the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification (CNMNC) of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) nomenclature scheme for the gadolinite-supergroup minerals in the general chemical formula A₂MQ₂T₂O₈φ₂. The program recalculates and estimates the chemical formulae of gadolinite-supergroup species based on 10 oxygen atoms, with the 2 T, 2 A, and T+ Q = 4 atoms per formula unit normalization options. Mineral formulae of the gadolinite-supergroup minerals are calculated based on the occupancy of A, M, Q, T, and φ sites, as well as the application of the dominant-valency and dominant-constituent rules. WinGadclas operates in four stages: (1) it estimates cation and anion contents provided by input chemical data; (2) it determines the dominant cation and anion at the A, M, Q, T, and φ sites; (3) it assigns the gadolinite-supergroup minerals to one of the four subgroups, including datolite, gadolinite, herderite, and drugmanite; and (4) it classifies the gadolinite-supergroup species into appropriate groups, such as gadolinite and herderite. WinGadclas allows users to: (1) enter up to 46 input variables for mineral-chemical analyses; (2) type and load multiple gadolinite-supergroup mineral compositions in the data entry section; (3) edit and load the Microsoft^® Excel files used in calculating, classifying, and naming the gadolinite-supergroup minerals, and (4) store all the calculated parameters in the output of a Microsoft^® Excel file for further data evaluation. The program is distributed as a self-extracting setup file for Windows 7 or later operating system, including the necessary support files used by the program, a help file, and representative sample data files.