A new mineral has been discovered at Australia's Kalgoorlie’s Super Pit and is named ‘kalgoorlieite’ after the type locality of Kalgoorlie.
The mineral, with chemical formula As^2Te^3, was discovered by Dr. Kirsten Rempel, from Australia's Curtin University’s Department of Applied Geology. She first identified the microscopic, silver colored particle in January, 2016, after examining ore samples at Curtin’s Kalgoorlie campus museum.
“This mineral, while only seen in very small grains so far, can provide important information about the genesis of the giant Golden Mile gold deposit, which is widely contested,” she added.
The sample was taken from the former Associated Gold Mines which was eventually consolidated into the Kalgoorlie Super Pit which is operated by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines. For years it stayed in the museum, simply described as ‘gold ore showing tellurides’.
Kalgoorlieite is the fourth oxygen-free As-Te mineral after benleonardite, debattistiite, and törnroosite. Its mineral class is monoclinic. [A crystal system is described by three vectors. In the monoclinic system, the crystal is described by vectors of unequal lengths, as in the orthorhombic system. They form a rectangular prism with a parallelogram as its base. Hence two vectors are perpendicular, while the third vector meets the other two at an angle other than 90°, seen below in orthoclase.]
Rempel told Australian Mining it took approximately three months to have the mineral approved by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), with the measurements and tests conducted in London. She said the IMA receives over 100 mineral proposals each year, and that most of the newly discovered minerals are complex and have minor differences to existing ones.
“It is rare to find a mineral with the simplicity of kalgoorlieite these days.” She added that kalgoorlieite was a telluride mineral that is chemically related to the silver and gold telluride ores in the super pit.
“Kalgoorlieite contains only trace amounts of gold and silver, but it is closely associated with gold-silver telluride minerals such as sylvanite,” she said, adding that it may be possible to find other new minerals in the sample.
“I think it’s actually possible because telluride is not very well studied and it is easily overlooked. But there are already quite a number of telluride found.” She added that telluride is important for gold recovery, with 20 % of gold from the mine coming from gold telluride (also known as calaverite).
Crystals have class...and so do PEOTS commenters. Are you happier knowing there's a new mineral in town?
Steph
The mineral, with chemical formula As^2Te^3, was discovered by Dr. Kirsten Rempel, from Australia's Curtin University’s Department of Applied Geology. She first identified the microscopic, silver colored particle in January, 2016, after examining ore samples at Curtin’s Kalgoorlie campus museum.
“This mineral, while only seen in very small grains so far, can provide important information about the genesis of the giant Golden Mile gold deposit, which is widely contested,” she added.
The sample was taken from the former Associated Gold Mines which was eventually consolidated into the Kalgoorlie Super Pit which is operated by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines. For years it stayed in the museum, simply described as ‘gold ore showing tellurides’.
Rempel told Australian Mining it took approximately three months to have the mineral approved by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), with the measurements and tests conducted in London. She said the IMA receives over 100 mineral proposals each year, and that most of the newly discovered minerals are complex and have minor differences to existing ones.
“It is rare to find a mineral with the simplicity of kalgoorlieite these days.” She added that kalgoorlieite was a telluride mineral that is chemically related to the silver and gold telluride ores in the super pit.
“Kalgoorlieite contains only trace amounts of gold and silver, but it is closely associated with gold-silver telluride minerals such as sylvanite,” she said, adding that it may be possible to find other new minerals in the sample.
“I think it’s actually possible because telluride is not very well studied and it is easily overlooked. But there are already quite a number of telluride found.” She added that telluride is important for gold recovery, with 20 % of gold from the mine coming from gold telluride (also known as calaverite).
Crystals have class...and so do PEOTS commenters. Are you happier knowing there's a new mineral in town?
Steph
