Kieserite

Etymology

It is named after Dietrich Georg von Kieser (Jena, Germany 1862).

Occurrence

Kieserite commonly occurs in marine evaporites and rarely in volcanic environments as a sublimate. It occurs in association with halite, carnallite, polyhalite, anhydrite, boracite, sulfoborite, leonite, epsomite and celestine.

Mars

In early 2005, Mars Express, a European Space Agency orbiter, discovered evidence of kieserite in patches of Valles Marineris (the largest canyon on Mars), along with gypsum and polyhydrated sulfates. This is direct evidence of Mars's watery past and augments similar discoveries made by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity in 2004.

Moons of Jupiter

Kieserite might also be a rock-forming mineral in the icy mantle of the outer three Galilean moons (Europa, Ganymede, Callisto). At pressures higher than 2.7 GPa, kieserite transforms to a triclinic crystal structure.

Uses

It is used in the production of Epsom salt and as a fertilizer, the overall global annual usage in agriculture in the mid 1970s was 2.3 million tons.

When used as a fertilizer, response to kieserite is likely where:

• Soil Mg levels are low
• pH is high
• Intensive liming occurs to raise the pH
• Nitrogen is applied as ammonium, as this can lead to an antagonism between ammonium and magnesium
• Compacted soils exist
• There is a period of wet/cold weather
• Dry weather occurs, leading to low magnesium mobility in the soil profile.

References

References

1. Warr, L.N.. (2021). "IMA–CNMNC approved mineral symbols". Mineralogical Magazine.
2. "Kieserite data on Webmineral".
3. "Kieserite on Mindat.org".
4. "Kieserite in the Handbook of Mineralogy".
5. "Kieserite group on Mindat".
6. (2020-01-15). "Polymorphism of Mg-monohydrate sulfate kieserite under pressure and its occurrence on giant icy jovian satellites". Icarus.
7. Industrial Inorganic Chemistry, Karl Heinz Büchel, Hans-Heinrich Moretto, Dietmar Werner, John Wiley & Sons, 2nd edition, 2000, {{ISBN. 9783527613335
8. (16 February 2022). "Magnesium".