The quincyte pigments: fossil quinones in an Eocene clay mineral

WG Prowse, KI Arnot, JA Recka, RH Thomson…

Index: Prowse; Arnot; Recka; Thomson; Maxwell Tetrahedron, 1991 , vol. 47, # 6 p. 1095 - 1108

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Citation Number: 16

Abstract

An unusual series of quinone pigments in a pink Eocene (c. 45x106 yr) sepiolite (quincyte, France) has been characterised by spectroscopy. The structure of the major pigment (c. 75% of total), 2, 8-di-isopropyl-peri-xanthenoxanthene-4, 10-quinone, was confirmed by synthesis. Spectroscopy revealed six minor related components with various oxygenated C- 2 substituents (C1–C3) and, generally, a C-8 isopropyl group. Although the origin of the ...