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Bezsmertnovite, less often bessmertnovite () is a very rare supergene mineral of the Sulfide mineral, complex in composition: mixed plumbotelluride of gold, copper, iron, silver from the bilibinskite group with the calculation formula Au4Cu(Te,Pb).
Discovered in 1978 at the Aginskoe gold deposit (Central Kamchatka), Gromov L. Named after a geologist. — Moscow, Nedra Publishers, 1982. bezsmertnovite stands out among all other ore minerals with its unusually high saturation and purity of color (orange-yellow), surpassing even gold. Spiridonov E., Tatiana Chvileva Bezsmertnovite Au4Cu(Te,Pb) – new mineral from the oxidation zone of the Far East deposit. — Moscow: Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Volume 249. 1979. — p. 185-189 In 1979, the new mineral was named in honor of the married couple of famous Moscow mineralogists: Vladimir and Marianna Bezsmertnaya. The co-authors of the discovery were two Moscow scientists, geologist Ernst Spiridonov and mineralogist Tatiana Chvileva.
The internationally accepted name of the mineral reproduces the old (Church Slavonic) transcription of the word “bessmertie” (, immortality), which ceased to be a grammatical norm in the 19th century, however, preserved in various linguistic formations of early times. In particular, the spelling “bezsmertie” () was preserved among the corpus of old Russian surnames, the spelling of which was not updated or in the modern Ukrainian version. It was in this way that the new mineral received an unusual name (unusual even for the Russian language), given to it in honor of a married couple consisting of an authoritative Moscow mineralogist, a leading employee of the IMGRE and a specialist in the field of natural tellurides, Marianna Bezsmertnaya (1915-1991) and her husband, Vladimir Bezsmertny (1912-2002), a specialist in the field of geology of ore deposits. Moreover, it was Marianna Bezsmertnaya who insisted on including her husband’s name in the nomination list of the mineral bezsmertnovite, considering herself part of the family scientific tandem. This was her only request (an important condition) to Tatiana Chvileva and Ernst Spiridonov when nominating the mineral for approval by the commission of the Academy of Sciences and the USSR Ministry of Geology in 1979. Otherwise, she did not give her consent to such a name for the mineral. Nik. Semionov, Yuri Khanon. “Black box NS-44x” (notebook six). In the collection in memory of N.Yu. Semionov. — St. Petersburg: Faces of Russia, 2013.
At first, visually classified as a natural intermetallic compound of gold, the mineral almost immediately aroused scientific discussions, accompanied by a series of spectral and Radiography studies. L. Bochek, Y. Malinovsky, S. Sandomirskaya, N. Chuvikina. Bilibinskite and bezsmertnovite are not intermetallic of gold, but new hybrid minerals of the intermetallic + oxide type. Presented by academician N. Belov February 18, 1982. — Moscow, Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1982, volume 266, №5 — p.1255-1259 In the final version, the mineral was classified as a complex class of plumbotellurides.
Typical samples of bezsmertnovite are in the collection of the Institute of Mineralogy, Geochemistry and Crystal Chemistry of Rare Elements and in the Fersman Mineralogical Museum.
A distinctive optical feature of new minerals of the bilibinskite plumbotelluride group, especially bezsmertnovite, is the extremely high saturation and purity of color. Until then, the highest values for this parameter were characterized only by gold, which had an indicator p = 48%, relative to the white light source. However, the similar indicator for bezsmertnovite is significantly higher than gold ( p = 62%). Spiridonov E., Tatiana Chvileva New gold minerals — plumbotellurides of gold, copper, iron, silver (bilibinskite group). — Moscow: Notes of the Russian Mineralogical Society, 1982. — p. 140–147 The mineral is opaque, has a strong metallic luster and an orange tint, reminiscent of cuprous gold. The extremely high color saturation of bezsmertnovite is determined to be the highest of all known ore minerals. Tatiana Chvileva, Bezsmertnaya M., Spiridonov E., Agroskin A. etc. Guide to identifying ore minerals in reflected light. — Moscow, Nedra Publishers, 1988. — 504 p.
In reflected light, bezsmertnovite is similar to gold, due to which it is easily detected among aggregates of bilibinskite, bogdanovite and other minerals of the group: it is the lightest of them, has a rich orange-yellow color, and in crossed nicols it is weakly anisotropic in gray tones. The mineral has metallic electrical conductivity.
Plumbotellurides and stibioplumbotellurides gold – copper (silver) – iron develop in the weathering crust (in the cementation zone) of gold-telluride deposits. Bilibinskite, bogdanovite and bezsmertnovite contain about 50, 65 and 75 mass percent gold, respectively. Macroscopically they resemble bornite. The hardness of these minerals is noticeably higher than that of native gold. In supergene zones, minerals of the group replace hypogene kostovite, krennerite, sylvanite, nagyágite and altaite. In turn, gold plumbotellurides are not stable in oxidation zones; they are replaced by fine scalloped gold and tellurites Cu, lead, Fe. Spiridonov E.. Review of gold mineralogy in leading types of Au mineralization. — Moscow, Moscow State University, 2010. — p.143-171
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