Mineralogical and Geochemical Characterization of Arsenopyrite and Pyrite
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Geochemistry and Geochronology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (24 February 2023) | Viewed by 4096
Special Issue Editors
Interests: mineral geochemistry; physical chemistry; experiment; ore deposits; hydrothermal processes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Arsenopyrite (ideally FeAsS) and pyrite (FeS2) are widespread minerals in the Earth’s crust, essentially important as the scavengers of trace elements (especially gold) in ore deposits. Their abundance and commercial value has promoted the application of novel and high-efficient analytical methods to their study (SIMS, LA-ICP MS, SR XAS, APT, etc.). Nevertheless, these chemically and structurally simple compounds have remained, to date, elusive. Although there is experimental evidence that shows that pyrite and arsenopyrite are practically immiscible, the As content in natural pyrite is often very high, and the mechanism of its incorporation is not well understood. Complexity arises from the physicochemical properties of the mineral crystals due to their defect structures. The excess of metals (Fe and As) or the presence of S vacancies increases the content of noble metals, providing the formation of their “invisible” forms. The surficial nanoscale formations change geochemical characteristics, such as partition coefficients giving rise to trace element uptake. The same effect results from the intracrystalline adsorption of impurities at the boundaries of a dislocation nature.
Being excellent concentrators of gold in ore deposits, arsenopyrite and As-pyrite are fully undesirable in mine wastes because of the contamination of the environment with arsenic. On the other hand, pyrite can record bacterial processes originated at the surface of its particles, and thus holds important information on the oxygen regime of the oceans and atmosphere that took place at different stages of the Earth’s history.
For this Special Issue, we invite authors to submit original research papers as well as review articles that discuss the real structure and constitution of the minerals under consideration, which is essential not only for ore geology and mineralogy, but also for ecology, biogeochemistry and climate change science.
Dr. Vladimir Tauson
Dr. Sergey Lipko
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- pyrite
- arsenopyrite
- trace element speciation
- crystal imperfections and structural defects
- mineral surface
- ore deposits
