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Formula: Cu1.1Fe1.2S2
Sulphide, talnakhite group
Crystal System: Isometric
Specific gravity: 6.14 calculated
Hardness: 4½
Streak: Black
Colour: Yellow
Common impurities: Ni
Environments
Localities
At Monchegorsk, Murmansk Oblast, Russia, putoranite occurs in
copper-nickel mineralisation in
peridotite
(HOM).
At the type locality, the Oktyabrsky mine, Talnakh Cu-Ni Deposit, Noril'sk, Putoran Plateau, Taimyr Peninsula,
Taymyrskiy Autonomous Okrug, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, putoranite occurs in the massive
mooihoekite ores in close association with
mooihoekite and talnakhite.
Macroscopically putoranite is similar to mooihoekite and
talnakhite, and nickeloan putoranite oxidises quickly in air, like
talnakhite, producing a variegated tarnish. In reflected light
putoranite is similar in colour and reflectance to mooihoekite.
It occurs as dense coarse-grained aggregates up to 2 cm which consist of fine intergrowths of putoranite and
mooihoekite with indistinct, diffuse boundaries. It also occurs as
polysynthetically twinned intergrowths and rarely as single crystals. Besides
mooihoekite and talnakhite,
cubanite, pentlandite and
magnetite are frequently associated with putoranite. Other associates
include galena, sphalerite,
platinum-group minerals, native silver,
alabandite and
secondary minerals such as
valleriite, mackinawite, cuprian
pentlandite, and more rarely manganoan
shadlunite and djerfisherite
(AM 66.638-639).
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