Framboidal Pyrite

— An Extraordinary Self-Organization of a Natural Mineral

Abstract

The 3D packing structures of the microcrystals in framboidal pyrite have been studied through morphological examinations and crystallographic orientation analysis to understand the self-organization process. The structures are divided into (i) face-centered cubic, (ii) icosahedral and (iii) random packings. The detailed crystallography of pyrite framboids is characterized by high-angle (∼90°) misorientations shown by about a half of the microcrystals in a framboid. This means that the crystallographic orientation of microcrystals is not uniform even in highly ordered framboids, suggesting that their self-organization process is not crystallographically controlled, but occurs by the physical rotation of individual microcrystals.