Studying chemical elements influencing the serpentinization of magnetite, chromite, magnesite, and lizardite by using empirical formulas and principal component analysis

Abstract This study used principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce data complexity and identify variables influencing in the chemical compositions of minerals. Empirical formulas were also derived to identify such factors. According to the empirical formulas and PCA results, major chemical elements namely Fe3+, Fe2+, Mg, Mn, Co, Cr, and Si are more influenced in the chemical compositions of magnetite minerals sampled from the Shoufeng Lixin and Ruisui mines. The influence of other elements namely Al, Ni, Zn, Ti, V, and Ca are differed between samples. According to the empirical formulas, the major chemical elements influencing in the chemical compositions of lizardite minerals from the Shoufeng Lixin and Ruisui mines were Mg, Fe2+, Fe3+, Mn, Cr, Al, Si, and P. Other elements influencing in the chemical compositions of the lizardite were Co, Na, K, and Ca. Also, the major elements influencing the compositions of magnesite from the Shoufeng and Lixin mines were Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, Cr, Mn, Fe3+, Fe2+, and Co. Notably, for the chromite samples, including both grains and veins, from the Shoufeng Lixin and Ruisui mines, the same chemical elements influenced in the chemical composition of chromite, as determined from the empirical formulas; these elements were Cr, Fe3+, Fe2+, Mg, Mn, Co, Zn, Ni, Si, Al, Ti, and V.