Abstract
Pašavaite, Pd3Pb2Te2, is a new palladium mineral species discovered at the Talnakh deposit, Noril`sk-Talnakh Ni-Cu camp, Taimyr Autonomous District, Russia. It was observed in two polished sections, where it occurs as subhedral grains not exceeding 20 µm in diameter embedded in polarite, and randomly accompanied by unknown Pd-Pb-Bi-Te phases and sperylite or intergrown with Au-Ag phases.
In plane-polarized light, pašavaite is pale pink with brownish tinge, has strong bireflectance, pleochroic from brownish to light pink, distinctly to strongly anisotropic, and exhibits no internal reflections. The mineral is orthorhombic, space group Pmmn, with a 8.599(1), b 5.9381(6), c 6.3173(8) A, V 322.6(1) A3 and Z = 2.
The crystal structure was solved and refined from the powder X-ray diffraction data of syntetic Pd3Pb2Te2.