Béhierite is a very rare borate mineral, and the tantalum endmember of a solid solution series formed with schiavinatoite, its niobium analogue.Mrose, M.E., and Rose, H.J., 1961. Behierite, (Ta,Nb)BO4, a new mineral from Manjaka, Madagascar. Geological Society of America, Abstracts Annual Meetings 1961, 111A-111A
Béhierite is also one of the most simple tantalum minerals. It contains simple tetrahedral borate anions, instead of more common among minerals, planar BO3 groups. Both have zircon-type structure (tetragonal, space group I41/amd) and are found in pegmatites. Béhierite and holtite are minerals with essential tantalum and boron.
Béhierite was named for Jean Béhier (1903–1965), who discovered the mineral in 1959, as a French mineralogist, active in the Service Géologique, on the island of Madagascar.
Occurrence and association Béhierite occurs in granitic pegmatites in Manjaka and Antsongombato, Madagascar. Associated minerals are albite, manganese-bearing apatite-group mineral, lepidolite, elbaite or elbaite–liddicoatite, feldspar, pollucite, quartz, rhodizite, and schiavinatoite.
Crystal structure Crystal structure of synthetic TaBO4 was refined by Range et al. (1996).Range, K.J., Wildenauer, M., and Andratschke, M., 1996. Crystal structure of tantalum orthoborate, TaBO4. Zeitschrift für Kristallographie, 211-215 As béhierite is analogous to schiavinatoite, their crystal structures are expected to be similar.Demartin, F., Diella, V., Gramaccioli, C.M., and Pezzotta, F., 2001. Schiavinatoite, (Nb,Ta)BO4, the Nb analogue of behierite. European Journal of Mineralogy 13, 159-165
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