Petrologic and geophysical nature of serpentinites

Mineralogically, serpentinites consist predominantly of lizardite, clinochrysotile, and antigorite. Recent work has shown that these minerals are not polymorphs. Chrysotile is the only mineral recognized as a synthetic product in experimental studies of the system MgO-SiO₂-H₂O. Antigorite seems to be stable at higher temperatures than lizardite or chrysotile. The density of individual serpentine species is dependent on their morphology; the low-density serpentinites (