Characterization of Sulphides Patches from the Neyveli Lignite Deposit
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Abstract: The mineralogy and mineral chemistry of the hard, compact and heavy sulphide patches, found
along with lignites of Neyveli, Tamilnadu, India was investigated by optical and electron probe
microanalysis. These sulphide boulders consist mostly of marcasite, pyrite and rarely pyrrhotite.
Presence of gold in rare and trace quantities from the marcasite of these sulphide patches is
reported here for the first time. If this gold content evaluated properly and recovered
economically and in an environmental friendly way it adds up to the revenue of the mining
company as well as stop the environmental degradation. If marcasite is left as waste, then it may
add up to the environment as acid mine drainage.
Keywords:
Marcasite,
Lignite,
Neyveli,
Mineral chemistry
Cite this paper:
D. Rao, R. Nagendra, E. Mohideen and B. Nayak, "Characterization of Sulphides Patches from the Neyveli Lignite Deposit," Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, Vol. 8 No. 3, 2009, pp. 223-228. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2009.83019.
References
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[2] Kompella, R.M. and Raghuthaman, S. (2002) Removal of marcasite from lignite. Proc. of the Int. Sem. on Mineral Processing Technology (Eds. S.Subramanian, K.A..Natarajan, B.S.Rao and T.R.R.Rao), 3-5 January 2002, V.2, pp.638-643.
[3] Nayak, B., Chakravarty, S and Bhattacharyya, K.K. (2008) Invisible gold in the high sulphur Tertiary coals of Northeast India. Current Science, V.95, No.9, pp.1334-1337.