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Formula: Pd3Ni4Te8
Telluride, palladium- and
nickel- bearing mineral
Crystal system: Tetragonal
Environments
Plutonic igneous environments
Metamorphic environments
Proxitwelvefoldite is a new mineral, approved in 2024 and pending publication as of May 2025.
Localities
From the type locality, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australia,
proxitwelvefoldite was discovered in a historic specimen in the Natural History Museum of the University of
Florence; it is very rare and occurs as micrometer-sized crystals associated with
iron-bearing melonite in a silicate
matrix composed of major chlorite and
lizardite. Its name indicates its pseudo-12-fold symmetry.
Proxitwelvefoldite is the first terrestrial pseudo-dodecagonal
quasicrystal approximant, a periodic
crystalline solid with a composition close to that of a quasicrystal,
and its existence suggests that a dodecagonal quasicrystal may exist in
the Pd-Ni-Te system. The find is significant because natural
quasicrystals have so far been described only from extraterrestrial
samples
(AM 110.5.830).
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