Mineralogical Almanac volume 23, issue 3, 2019 - Platinum Mineral of Konder

Famous Mineral Localities of Russia

Alexander Gennadievich Mochalov 

128 pages, 328 figures, including 11 schems and 259 mineral photos.

This issue of Mineralogical Almanac is devoted to the Konder alkaline-ultramafic complex, a remarkable mineralogical and geological object in the Russian Far East. The specific topic of this work is a unique platinum mineralization of Konder massif, the only source in the world of large and perfect isoferroplatinum crystals and twins, sometimes with gold coatings. It also yielded other very interesting specimens of Platinum-group minerals, e.g., unique crystals of zvyagintsevite, huge isoferroplatinum nuggets, as well as samples of sulfides of all six Platinum-group elements. Dr. Alexander G. Mochalov, the author of this issue, is a well-known Russian geologist and mineralogist, a specialist in platinummineralization, and one of the discoverers of the Konder platinumdeposit. He works there formore than thirty years. The readers will find the data on history of discovery, prospecting, geological study and exploitation of the placer platinum deposits located in the valley of the Konder and Uorgalan rivers. There is an information on the geology and genetic features of both Konder complex and related platinum-bearing placers and, surely, on the remarkable platinum, palladium, gold and silver minerals.