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Formula: PdSbTe
Telluride of palladium,
cobaltite group
Crystal System: Isometric
Specific gravity: 8.991 calculated
Hardness: 3½ to 4
Colour: Brownish steel-gray, tarnishes yellow-brown
Common impurities: Pt,Ag,Ni
Environments
Localities
At Lunnon Shoot, Kambalda Nickel mines, Kambalda, Coolgardie Shire, Western Australia, euhedral grains of
michenerite-testibiopalladite occur as inclusions in
altaite from a telluride-bearing
quartz-carbonate vein that cuts
nickel-iron sulphide ore. Grains vary in size
from 50 to 200 microns and consist of concentric-compositional zones that show a progressive but steplike decrease in
antimony and increase in bismuth from a
core of testibiopalladite to a margin of michenerite.
Other minerals in the vein are hessite,
volynskite, rucklidgeite,
melonite, galena,
chalcopyrite and gold
(CM 29.401-409).
Testibiopalladite was originally reported from Yangliuping copper -
nickel -
platinum group element deposit,
Danba county, Garzê Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. The testibiopalladite was found in concentrates
of crushed ores as irregular to short prismatic grains 0.07 to 0.10 mm in size. It is bright steel-grey with a light brown
tint and a metallic lustre; surfaces are often tarnished yellowish-brown.
Testibiopalladite occurs as inclusions in
gersdorffite-cobaltite,
pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite and
pentlandite in copper -
nickel - sulphide deposits in a
serpentinite body intruded into metamorphic rocks in Southwestern
China, and in a deposit that is mainly a clinopyroxenite intruding
into sandy shales and volcanics in Northeastern China
(AM 61.182).
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