The preliminary investigation of cayirhan glauberite mineralization in Ankara, Turkey

Glauberite mineralization from Cayirhan, Ankara (Central Anatolia) has been investigated and identified the major mineralogical, petrographical and geochemical properties. Glauberite occurrence, a sodium calcium sulfate mineral (Na₂Ca(SO₄)₂) by evaporation, is underneath the gypsum mineralization which accumulated at the contact zone between Pliocene aged Ucyatak and Softa formations. The mineralization is related to clay and mudstone, and accompanies with thenardite, gypsum, anhydrite, mirabilite and blodite. Major paragenes thenartite - glauberite and other accompanied minerals figure out that the mineralization forms under the control of more than one phase and origin in the basin. Mineralogical study exhibited that glauberite grains had idiomorphic, high relief and edge with thenardite, besides glauberite - thenardite transformation. Also, secondary thenardite crystallizations were in the primary ones. Chemical analyses were performed on core samples for define the contents of their major components. Na₂O concentration changed between 11.5% and 18.8%, while CaO was 12.5% - 20.6% and SO₃ was 32.86% - 53.91%.