Author(s)

D.S. Rao, R. Nagendra, E. Rasool Mohideen, B.R. Nayak

Centre for Geoscience and Engineering, Anna University, Chennai-600 025.
Dept. of Civil Engineering, Crescent Engineering College, Chennai – 600 048.
Mineralogy Department, IMMT, Bhubaneswar-751 013.
MNP Division, National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur – 831007.

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.

Marcasite, Lignite, Neyveli, Mineral chemistry

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.