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Formula: Pd2As
Arsenide of palladium
Crystal System: Orthorhombic
Specific gravity: 11.3 calculated
Colour: Brownish gray with a bluish tint in reflected light
Environments
Igneous environments
Placer deposits
Localities
At the type locality, the Miass River, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, palladodymite occurs in
platinum placers derived from ultra-basic rocks in a small fluvial placer deposit. It
is found as inclusions, up to 30 × 70 μm, in native ruthenium. Other associated
minerals include isoferroplatinum,
cherepanovite, irarsite,
hongshiite, sperrylite,
tulameenite and unnamed IrAsTe
(AM 85.876, HOM).
The Onverwacht and Tweefontein ultramafic pipes, eastern Bushveld Complex, in South Africa, contain small xenoliths of
chromitite that consist of polyphase grains made up of:
(a) laurite along with unknown Ir–Ni–Fe sulphides and base-metal sulphides,
(b) abundant alloys (isoferroplatinum,
ruthenium) and Rh–Pd–Ru arsenides
(cherepanovite, ruthenarsenite,
rhodarsenide, and palladodymite or
palladoarsenide, with accessory
laurite and palladium antimonides
(stibiopalladinite or sudburyite),
included both in fresh chromite and in interstitial
olivine, and
(c) relatively large grains of sperrylite and
hollingworthite with minor laurite
associated with the altered portions of the chromitite host
(CM 40.2.481-497).
In Umsweswe River sediment, Zimbabwe, palladodymite occurs with palladium- and
rhodium-bearing platinum
(HOM).
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