-bearing : a link hub

Axel Drefahl • [email protected]

Last updated: February 11, 2017

Summary Gold occurs in minerals in association with other elements including , , lead, , sulfur, selenium and tellurium—to name the most common co-elements. Here, I provide an external link hub: a list of gold-bearing minerals, alphabetically ordered by name, with links to web sites offering mineralogical data and further, detailed information. This document is available at: www.axeleratio.com/minerals/AuMineralsLinks.pdf

Copyright c 2017 by author. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International Licence (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licence/by/4.0/

Keywords. of gold, mineral hub, look-up list.

A look-up list with links for gold-bearing minerals

Gold-bearing minerals are of economic significance in exploiting gold de- posits. The mode of gold occurrence in ore affects the extractive metallurgy of gold [1, 2]. Since mineralogical factors drive the development of gold assays and metallurgical processes, an organized and reliable access to physical attributes of gold minerals is expedient. The following is alphabetically ordered by mineral name.

The mineral composition is given by chemical and/or empirical for- mula. The actual percentage of gold deviates from the percentage value derived from ideal stoichiometry, depending on the mineral at hand. The

1 typical gold content in wt% (from Table 2 in [2]) is provided for many minerals at the end of the composition line.

The group name characterizes the mineral as gold alloy (inter- metallic alloy or compound) or as compound mineral. In the letter case, the group name is based on the major non-transition-metal constituent(s); for example, sulfotelluride for a minerals rich in sulfur and tellurium.

The link list embeds internet links to web pages with data and fur- ther references for the particular mineral. Considered are respective pages of the Handbook of Mineralogy (HdbkMin, http://www. handbookofmineralogy.org/), the MinDat Database (http://www. mindat.org/), the Mineralogy Database (WebMineral, http://www. webmineral.com/) and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (https:// www.wikipedia.org/).

Anyuiite

Composition: AuPb2, also Au(Pb,Sb)2 or AuPb1.5Sb0.5; 27-33 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat, WebMineral

Auricupride

Composition: Cu3Au; 50-56 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat, WebMineral Wikipedia.

Aurostibite

Composition: AuSb2; 43-51 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

Bezsmertnovite (also: Bessmertnovite)

Composition: (Au,Ag)4Cu(Te,Pb); 68-88 wt.% Au Group name: Gold lead-telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

2 Bilibinskite

Composition: Au3Cu2Pb · nTeO2; 40-66 wt.% Au Group name: Gold lead-telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Bogdanovite

Composition: (Au,Te,Pb)3(Cu,Fe); 57-63 wt.% Au Group name: Gold lead-telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Buckhornite

Composition: Pb2BiS3(AuTe2); 17 wt.% Au Group name: Gold sulfotelluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Calaverite

Composition: AuTe2; 39-44 wt.% Au Group name: gold telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

Criddleite

Composition: Ag2Au3TlSb10S10; 22-23 wt.% Au Group name: Gold-silver sulfide Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral,

Cuproauride

Composition: Cu3Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat.

Electrum Composition: (Au,Ag); 50-75 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat, Wikipedia.

3 Fischesserite

Composition: Ag3AuSe2; about 27.3 wt.% Au Group name: Gold selenite Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Gold, native Composition: Au Group name: Metal element (precious metal) Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

Hessite

Composition: Ag2Te or (Ag,Au)2Te; less than 15 wt% Au Group name: Silver telluride or silver-gold telluride Links: Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

Honeaite

Composition: Au3TlTe3 Group name: Gold thallium-telluride Links: Mindat, Wikipedia.

Hunchunite

Composition: Au2Pb; 62.6 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Jaszczakite

Composition: [Bi3S3][AuS2] Group name: Gold bismuth-sulfide Links: Mindat.

Jonassonite

Composition: Au(Bi,Pb)5S4 Group name: Gold bismuth-sulfide Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

4 Kostovite

Composition: AuCuTe4; about 25 wt.% Au Group name: Gold telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

Krennerite

Composition: Au3AgTe8, (Au,Ag)Te2; 30-44 wt.% Au Group name: Gold telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

K¨ustelite Composition: (Ag,Au), containing leass than 50 wt.% Au, often 10-30 wt.% Au Group name: Silver alloy Links: Mindat.

Liujiyinite

Composition: Ag3AuS2; 18.6-36 wt.% Au Group name: Gold sulfide Links: only found in Table 3 of [2].

Maldonite

Composition: Au2Bi; 63-68 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

Montbrayite

Composition: (Au,Sb)2Te3; 38-45 wt.% Au Group name: Gold telluride Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

Museumite

Composition: [Pb2(Pb,Sb)2S8][(Te,Au)2] Group name: Gold sulfotelluride Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

5 Muthmannite

Composition: AuAgTe2; 23-35 wt.% Au Group name: Gold telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Nagy´agite

Composition: [Pb(Pb,Sb)S2][(Au,Te)]; 10 wt.% Au Group name: Gold sulfide (sulfosalt mineral) Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

Novodneprite

Composition: AuPb3 Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

Penzhinite

Composition: (Ag,Cu)4Au(S,Se)4 Group name: Gold sulfoselenide Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Petrovskaite Composition: AuAg(S,Se); 56-61 wt.% Au Group name: Gold-silver sulfoselenide Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Petzite

Composition: Ag3AuTe2; 19-25 wt.% Au Group name: Gold-silver telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

Sylvanite

Composition: (Au,Ag)2Te4 (Au:Ag ratio usuall is close to 1:1 [see]); 24-30 wt.% Au Group name: Gold-silver telluride Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

6 Tetra-auricupride Composition: CuAu; 70-76 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: HdbkMin, Mindat, WebMineral.

Uytenbogaardtite

Composition: Ag3AuS2 Group name: Gold-silver sulfide Links: Mindat, WebMineral, Wikipedia.

Weishanite

Composition: (Au,Ag)3HgS2, (Au,Ag)1.2HgS0.8; 56.9 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

Yuanjiangite Composition: AuSn; 62.4 wt.% Au Group name: Gold alloy Links: Mindat, WebMineral.

References and further reading

[1] Vaughan, J.P.; “The process mineralogy of gold ores: The classification of ore types,” J. Miner. Met. Mater. Soc. 2004, 56 (7), pp. 46-48. DOI: 10.1007/s11837-004-0092-8

[2] Zhou, J.; Jago, B. and Martin, C.; “Establishing the process mineralogy of gold ores,” SGS Minerals - Technical Bulletin 2004-03.

About Axel

Axel is a chemist and cheminformatician. His work in chemical data mining and scientific software development is enhanced by his strong interest in min- eralogy and materials design. At Cycladex, he currently develops green pro- cesses to leach precious metals from diverse types of ore and recyclable ma- terials. Also, he is the founder of the CurlySMILES project, promoting the

7 compact encoding and efficient data mining of complex molecular architec- tures. Axel loves to travel and post his outdoor & out-of-town experiences at Trailing Ahead and, for his local fans, at Explore Reno-Tahoe and beyond.

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