The Occurrence of Platinum (Pt) and Skaergaardite (Pd Cu) in the Hutti Underground Gold Mines, Eastern Dharwar Craton, Karnataka, India

Abstract

The novelty of this study consists, use of the Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD) technique facility at CSIR-NGRI to report the occurrence of platinum and skaergaardite (Pd Cu) in the Hutti underground gold mines. This study utilized a quartz-bearing sample from the Hutti underground gold mines. One of the split samples were analyzed by PXRD. In this study, quartz samples are found to be associated with sulphides composed of pyrite, chalcopyrite, and arseno-pyrite with intense chemical alterations. The mineral phase of skaergaardite shows a strong intensity at 2q 43.5° and confirmed with database of International Centre for Diffraction Data Powder Diffraction File – ICDD-2021-PDF4+ PDF00-057-0606 and native platinum, syn (Pt) Pt 0.0999 Sn 0.001 matched with PDF 04-001-3300. Further research work is planned on this interesting mineral association with primary gold ore in Hutti underground gold mine.