Detailed information
Species
Tolovkite, Isoferroplatinum, Laurite
Dimensions
16 x 16 x 6
mm
Weight
2 g
Locality
Tolovka River placer Koryak Okrug Kamchatka Krai, Russia
Condition
No recorded repairs
Three metallic grains, the largest 1.8 x 1.0 mm wide are mounted in a 16 mm diameter resin polished block. These grains contain four extremely rare minerals - Tolovkite, Isoferroplatinum, Laurite and an uncharacterized Ruthenium-Platinum alloy. This style of polished mount requires a specialist reflected light microscope in order to study the grains and the reflectance produced by these metallic minerals under plane polarized and cross polarized light. Often, even optical identification is a challenge and the carbon coating on the edge of this polished block shows that it has been studied chemically using a Scanning Electron Microscope. This is not our usual type of specimen, but included due to its rarity. Examples of Tolovkite from this, the Type Locality are rarely available. This sample comes with a previous printed collection label from Austria, but it was also owned by Dr. Hans-Jurgen Wilke (1925-2014) whose record card notes that it was obtained from Dr. Mikhail Murashko in St. Petersburg, Russia and was previously owned by "Rudashevskii" who is probably N.S. Rudashevskii who was second author on the paper describing Tolovkite as a new species. The overall measurements provided indicate the size of the polished block. A really rare, and unusual specimen, perfect for the Type Locality enthusiast.
