  almandine , also known incorrectly as almandite, is a species of mineral belonging to the garnet group. the name is a corruption of alabandicus, which is the name applied by pliny the elder to a stone found or worked at alabanda, a town in caria in asia minor. almandine is an iron alumina garnet, of deep red color, inclining to purple. it is frequently cut with a convex face, or en cabochon, and is then known as carbuncle. viewed through the spectroscope in a strong light, it generally shows three characteristic absorption bands. almandine is one end-member of a mineral solid solution series, with the other end member being the garnet pyrope. the almandine crystal formula is: fe3al2(sio4)3. magnesium substitutes for the iron with increasingly pyrope-rich composition. almandine, fe2+3al2si3o12, is the ferrous iron end member of the class of garnet minerals representing an important group of rock-forming silicates, which are the main constituents of the earth's crust, upper mantle and transition zone. almandine crystallizes in the cubic space group iad, with unit-cell parameter a â 11.512 Ã at 100 k.geiger c., armbruster th., lager g., jiang k., lottermoser w., and amthauer g. (1992). "a combined temperature dependent57fe mÃ¶ssbauer and single crystal x-ray diffraction study of synthetic almandine: evidence for the gol'danskii-karyagin effect." physics and chemistry of minerals, volume 19, number 2, pp. 121-126. http://www.springerlink.com/conten
Garnet_group