Journal of

GEOsciences

  (Formerly Journal of the Czech Geological Society)

Letter to editor

Pavel Škácha, Jakub Plášil, Jiří Sejkora, Viktor Goliáš

Sulfur-rich antimonselite, Sb₂(Se,S)₃ in the Se-bearing mineral association from the Příbram uranium and base metal ore district, Czech Republic

Journal of Geosciences, volume 60 (2015), issue 1, 23 - 29

DOI: http://doi.org/10.3190/jgeosci.186

Antimonselite from the new occurrence, Příbram uranium-base metal ore district (Central Bohemia, Czech Republic), has been studied by means of electron microprobe and X-ray diffraction. Antimonselite crystals, reaching up to 1.5 mm across, were rarely found in the calcite gangue with uraninite in association with clausthalite, tiemannite, hakite, tetrahedrite, Se-rich chalcopyrite, permingeatite, Se-rich and Se-analogue of chalcostibite and dzharkenite. Based on electron-microprobe analyses, the empirical formula of the studied antimonselite (mean of 7 point analyses, based on 5 apfu) is (Sb_2.06Cu_0.01)_Σ2.07(Se_2.47S_0.46)_∑2.93. The studied S-rich antimonselite is orthorhombic, the space group Pnma, with a = 11.7156(3), b = 3.9514(11), c = 11.5645(3) Å, V = 535.36(15) ų, and Z = 4. The structure was refined from the single-crystal X-ray data to R₁ = 0.0143 for 634 reflections [with I_obs > 3σ(I)]. The structure of S-rich antimonselite is isotypic to that of stibnite. Sulfur was found to be entering the selenium sites regularly without any evidence of preferential ordering of the atoms at the different sites.