leifite

{{Infobox mineral | name = Leifite | category = Silicate mineral | boxwidth = 24 | boxbgcolor = | image = Leifite-zr4a.jpg | imagesize = 260px | caption = | formula = | IMAsymbol = Lf | molweight = 425.47 g/mol | strunz = 9.EH.25 (10 ed) 8/J.10-10 (8 ed) | dana = 78.07.10.01 | system = Trigonal | class = Hexagonal scalenohedral (m) H-M symbol: ( 2/m) | symmetry= Pm1 | colour = white, colourless to pale violet | habit = Typically radiating aggregates of fine needles | twinning = None | cleavage = Distinct on {100} | fracture = Uneven to splintery | tenacity = Brittle | mohs = 6 | lustre = Silky to vitreous | refractive = nω = 1.516 and nε = 1.520. | opticalprop = Uniaxial (+) | birefringence = δ = 0. 011 | pleochroism = | streak = White | gravity = 2.6 | melt = | fusibility = | diagnostic = | solubility = | diaphaneity = Transparent to translucent | other = | references = }}

Leifite is a rare tectosilicate. Tectosilicates are built on a framework of tetrahedra with silicon or aluminium at the centre and oxygen at the vertices; they include feldspars and zeolites, but leifite does not belong in either of these categories. It is a member of the leifite group, which includes telyushenkoite ) and eirikite ). Leifite was discovered in 1915, and named after Leif Ericson who was a Norse explorer who lived around 1000 AD, and was probably the first European to land in North America, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus. Eirikite was named in 2007 after Eirik Raude, or Erik the Red, (950–1003), who discovered Greenland and who was the father of Leif Ericson. The third mineral in the group, telyushenkoite, was discovered in 2001. It was not named after any of Leif Ericson's family members, but after a professor of geology in Turkmenistan.