Mineral Database
Calaverite
Crystal System: Monoclinic
Formula: AuTe2
Status of Occurrence: Discredited Occurrence
Distribution: None - Discredited
Chemical Composition: Gold telluride
Method(s) of Verification: None.
Chemical Group:
- Sulphides
Geological Context:
- Hydrothermal : mesothermal polymetallic veins
Introduction: calaverite occurs with other gold and silver-gold tellurides in hydrothermal veins, stockworks and other gold deposits.
Occurrence in Wales: calaverite was tentatively identified (Gilbey, 1968) in a polished section of galena from the Panorama Mine near Barmouth in the Dolgellau Gold-belt. A re-examination of the section, including electron microprobe studies, revealed the inclusion to be native bismuth associated with bismuth tellurides (D.H.M. Alderton, unpublished data). Moreover, the provenance of the sample is in doubt as it has been suggested that the tips at Panorama were deliberately seeded with material from Clogau (L. Haynes, pers.comm. to J. Naden). More recent studies of gold-belt mineralization (Naden, 1988; Mason et al., 2002) have both shown gold to occur entirely as the native metal, with accompanying tellurides of lead, silver and bismuth: on the basis of these facts, calaverite is regarded to be an invalid Welsh species.
Key Localities:
There are no key localities for this specimen.
References:
- The mineralogy, paragenesis and structure of the ores of the Dolgellau Gold Belt, Merionethshire, and associated wall rock alteration. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of London, UK.
- Ore Mineralogy of the mesothermal gold lodes of the Dolgellau Gold Belt, North Wales. Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (Section B, Applied earth science), 111, B203-B214.
- Gold mineralisation in the Caledonides of the British Isles with reference to the Dolgellau Gold Belt and the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Aston, UK.
