Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Résumé Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Cook, N. J. Articles by Bernhardt, H.-J. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

SOBOLEVSKITE, TAIMYRITE, AND Pt₂CuFe (TULAMEENITE?) IN COMPLEX MASSIVE TALNAKHITE ORE, NORIL’SK OREFIELD, RUSSIA

Nigel J. Cook^1,, Cristiana L. Ciobanu¹, Roland K.W. Merkle² and Heinz-Jürgen Bernhardt³

¹ Geological Survey of Norway, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway
² Department of Earth Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa
³ Institut für Mineralogie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany

E-mail address: nigel.cook{at}ngu.no

Compositional data are given for a suite of minerals present in a particularly PGM-rich ore from Noril’sk region, Russia. A characteristic association of altaite (PbTe) intergrown with sobolevskite [Pd(Bi,Te)] and taimyrite [(Pd,Pt,Cu)₃Sn] occurs within talnakhite–galena-rich ores from the Oktyabr’ mine, Noril’sk Complex. Associated minerals include Ag–Au alloy and minor amounts of froodite, paolovite, sperrylite and Pd(Bi,Pb). Varying Bi:Te values in sobolevskite are in agreement with the previously proven solid-solution between kotulskite (PdTe) and sobolevskite (PdBi). New compositional and reflectance data are provided for taimyrite with the composition (Pd_1.55Cu_0.85Pt_0.6)₃Sn. An alloy with the composition Pt₂FeCu is common as prismatic and needle-shaped crystals at the outer margin of altaite. This may represent the first report of tulameenite from Noril’sk, albeit morphologically and paragenetically somewhat different from previously reported occurrences. Observed textures, dominated by a range of intergrowths, in part symplectitic, at every scale from cm-size oblong-shaped grains of galena in talnakhite down to µm-scale intergrowths of altaite and sobolevskite, derive from a complex sequence of unmixing in the system Pt–Pd–Bi–Te–Pb–Ag–Au–Sn–Cu–Fe–Ni–S–Te during cooling.

Keywords: platinum-group minerals, sobolevskite, taimyrite, tulameenite, Noril’sk, Russia.