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Download hereGENERAL DESCRIPTION
Zvyagintsevite is a mineral containing 3 noble metals (platinum, gold and palladium) as well as lead and tin. This very unusual chemical composition makes zvyagintsevite an extremely rare mineral species of the group of the "native elements" mineral class.
It is formed in the veins containing of copper sulfides. The crystals are pseudo-cubic and have a small size. Generally, it forms irregular grains or is presented in a massive form. The crystals are gray, opaque and with a metallic lustre.
Only a few occurrences of zvyagintsevite are known: the Zapolyarni and Taimryskii mines in Siberia, the Stillwater complex in Montana and the deposit of Kirakkajuppura in Finland but also in Greenland. Type: the types of this species are kept at the Canadian Geological Survey in Ottawa, Canada and at the Mineralogical Museum "A.E. Fersman" of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Минералогический музей им. А. Е. Ферсмана) of Moscow, Russia. They were described in 1966 on a sample coming from the copper-nickel deposit of Talnakh near Noril'sk, Putoran area, peninsula of Taimyr in the autonomous area of the same name (Taymyrskiy Okrug), territory of Krasnoyarsk (or Krasnoyarsk Kray; Krasnoyarskii Krai), Eastern Siberia, Russia.
HISTORY : Species dedicated to Orest Evgenevich Zvyagintsev (1894-1967), Russian geochemist russe specialist of platinum-group metals
Species first described in 1966 by AD. Genkin et al.
Type-locality: Talnakkh, Noril'sk, Siberia, Russia
CHEMICAL FORMULA : (Pd,Pt,Au)3 (Pb,Sn)
CRYSTAL SYSTEM : Cubic
COLOR : White, gray
DIAPHANIETY : Opaque
LUSTER : Metallic
STREAK : Black
MORPHOLOGIE : Irregular grains, massive, cubic crystals
HARDNESS : 4
CHEMICAL CLASS: 13,42
DENSITY : I - Elements
GROUP : Zvyagintsevite
STRUNZ CLASS BEFORE 2001 : 1/A.16-10
STRUNZ CLASS AFTER 2001 : 1.GA.10
