Platinum
Species
Rare · Pt
Native platinum, steel grey and often alloyed with iron and the other platinum metals, in grains, scales and rare nuggets up to 30 kg from placers and from mafic and ultramafic rocks. Pre-Columbian goldsmiths of the Esmeraldas coast and the Chocó worked it into artefacts; Spanish gold miners long threw it away as a nuisance, until Antonio de Ulloa's report of 1748 brought the new metal to European science. The Chocó placers and the Urals around Nizhny Tagil are still worked.
Identity
- Formula
- Pt
- Chemical class
- Native element
- Also known as
- Native platinum, Platina
- Ore of
- Platinum, Palladium, Rhodium, Osmium, Iridium
Crystallography
- Crystal system
- Cubic
- Habits
- Cubic, Rounded, Granular
- Fracture
- Hackly
Physical properties
- Mohs hardness
- 4
- Density
- 19 g/cm³
- Luster
- Metallic
- Colors
- silver gray, dark gray
- Transparency
- Opaque
Geology
- Origins
- Igneous, Sedimentary
- Host rocks
- Ultramafic rock (peridotite, serpentinite), River gravels and sands
- Associated minerals
- Chromite, Magnetite, Chalcopyrite, Gold, Iridium, Osmium
- Found in
- Placer deposit
- Geography
- Colombia (Chocó), Ecuador (Esmeraldas), Russia (Nizhny Tagil, Urals), USA (Goodnews Bay, Alaska), Canada (Tulameen, British Columbia), South Africa (Bushveld)
Classification
- Rarity
- Rare
- Gem quality
- No
Sources
- M. Pasero and others, IMA Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification, The New IMA List of Minerals, updated September 2026. International Mineralogical Association (CNMNC), 2026.
- J. W. Anthony, R. A. Bideaux, K. W. Bladh, M. C. Nichols, Platinum. Mineral Data Publishing, Handbook of Mineralogy, 2001.
- Platinum. Wikipedia.
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