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Gold/Mining/Energy : Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Just G who wrote (179)	11/18/1999 11:16:00 PM
From: Ptaskmaster	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 529

The kind of things one can find in rocks: Unconventional Platinum Group Minerals (UPGM) This web page is an attempt to call the attention on a group of compounds, which mere existence is challenging our set ideas about the supergene destiny of the Platinum Group Elements (PGE) and the Platinum Group Minerals (PGM). Indeed, we were brought up with the concept of natural PGM (comprised of native elements, alloys, intermetallics, sulphides, selenides, tellurides and sulfosalts), which, when undergoing alteration (if anywise), give rise to hypothetical, invisible, readily adsorbable, chemical species. One did not think of solid alteration compounds, observable under the microscope, and the very scarce observations of PGE oxides were classified "unconfirmed" not long ago. However, the first oxidic PGE-compounds have been massively discovered in Brazil in 1695,... Since then,..discoveries have...gathered pace in the last thirty years, most of them due to the extensive use of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the electron microprobe (EMP). Today, about 30 localities have been recognised in 15 countries from 5 continents. We define arbitrarily the Unconventional Platinum Group Minerals (UPGM) as the group of PGE-containing oxides, hydroxides, oxihydroxides, silicates, sulfates, halogenides, organometallics, etc. Representatives of these compounds have all be observed to date. The grouping...is...intended at convincing (and reminding) the professionals and amateurs that such weird things do exist, and are possibly frequent. ----snip----- Here is presented a selection of original photographs of UPGM found in PGE-ores, classical and unconventional. The same features are displayed under the reflected light microscope (RLM) and the SEM, as far as possible. ---snip----- Jacques Jedwab. Université Libre de Bruxelles. Brussels, Belgium. jjedwab@ulb.ac.be ulb.ac.be