IMA reports for mineral systematics

The IMA-CNMMN has published over the past years in several mineralogical journals many official reports which contain the rules and regulations about all aspects of the mineral systematics, including: Definition of a mineral; Definitions of type mineral specimens; Discreditation of mineral species; End-member formula; Guidelines for polymorphs and polysomes; Mineral symbols; Names, prefixes and suffixes, and adjectival modifiers; Procedures and guidelines on mineral nomenclature; Solid solutions in mineral nomenclature.

These reports are available in the following papers:

1987 – Formal definitions of type mineral specimen. (Dunn and Mandarino)
1987 – Procedures involving the IMA Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names and guidelines on mineral nomenclature. (Nickel and Mandarino)
1989 – Protocols for scientists on the deposition of investigated mineral specimens. (Dunn)
1990 – The discreditation of mineral species. (Dunn)
1992 – Solid solutions in mineral nomenclature. (Nickel)
1993 – Standardization of polytype suffixes. (Nickel)
1995 – The definition of a mineral. (Nickel)
1995 – Mineral names applied to synthetic substances. (Nickel)
1998 – The IMA Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names: procedures and guidelines on mineral nomenclature, 1998. (Nickel and Grice)
2002 – The use of end-member charge-arrangements in defining new mineral species and heterovalent substitutions in complex minerals. (Hawthorne)
2005 – The use of chemical-element adjectival modifiers in mineral nomenclature. (Bayliss et al.)
2008 – The IMA–CNMNC dominant-constituent rule revisited and extended. (Hatert and Burke)
2009 – The standardisation of mineral group hierarchies: application to recent nomenclature proposals. (Mills et al.)
2013 – CNMNC guidelines for the use of suffixes and prefixes in mineral nomenclature, and for the preservation of historical names. (Hatert et al.)
2017 – How to define, redefine or discredit a mineral species? (Hatert et al.)
2019 – On the application of the IMA−CNMNC dominant-valency rule to complex mineral compositions. (Bosi et al.)
2020 – New IMA CNMNC guidelines on combustion products from burning coal dumps. (Parafiniuk and Hatert)
2021 – IMA–CNMNC approved mineral symbols. (Warr)
2023 – CNMNC guidelines for the nomenclature of polymorphs and polysomes. (Harter et al.)
2025 – IMA-CNMNC guidelines for assessing the natural geological origin of minerals (Bosi et al.)

A compendium of IMA-approved nomenclature complied in the occasion of IMA 22nd General Meeting in Melbourne (August 2018) is available

here

Nomenclature reports (IMA and non-IMA) not included in the compilation

A review of the Commission activities: Can. Mineral., 40 (2002), 1721-1735
Report of the IMA-IUCr Joint Committee on Nomenclature (polytypes): Am. Mineral., 62 (1977), 441-445.
Nomenclature for regular interstratifications: Am. Mineral., 67 (1982), 394-398.
Nomenclature of rare-earth minerals: Am. Mineral., 51 (1966), 152-158, and Am. Mineral., 73 (1988), 422-423.
Modular classification of sulphosalts: Neues Jahrb. Mineral., Abhandl., 160 (1989), 269-297.
Site populations in minerals: terminology and presentation: Can. Mineral., 33 (1995), 907-911.
Nomenclature relevant to clay mineralogy: Clays and Clay Minerals, 54 (2006), 761-772 and Clay Minerals, 41 (2006), 863-877.
Mass discreditation of GQN minerals: Can. Mineral., 44 (2006), 1557-1560

CNMNC Publications in Elements Magazine