Milli-PIXE determination of trace elements in osmium-rich platinum-group minerals from the Witwatersrand basin, South Africa

Osmium-rich platinum-group minerals (PGM), like osmiridium or native osmium, are an integral, though rare, part of the mineralogy of the Witwatersrand paleoplacer. Usually these grains are small, on average <100 mu m in size,and the characteristics of their source areas are unknown. In the mineralogical literature on these PCM in the Witwatersrand gold reefs, no information on the trace elements in these minerals is available. The milli-PIXE system at the van de Graaff accelerator at the Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa was used in a first attempt to determine a range of minor and trace elements, such as Co, Cu, Fe, Rh and Ru, in PGM from the Witwatersrand basin. This attempt is directed towards fingerprinting individual grains and to obtain possible information on the sources for these grains. It also serves as a first step towards a database of trace elements, which could allow a genetical classification of Os-rich PGM of unknown provenance. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.