Native Platinum crystals - very rare specimens from only Kondyer Massif

Beautiful Natural Platinum Crystal Nugget that comes from prospecting in Kondyer Massif, Khabarovskiy Kray, Russia. Check out the interlaced multiple crystals. Platinum crystal nuggets are extremely rare, much more rare and valuable than regular river worn platinum nuggets. This shapely platinum crystal is just as it was found in a placer prospect in Russia. It would make a wonderful addition to your collection. It also makes a great investment and is ideal for jewelry making, gift giving or displaying. I found just only one dealer from Russia on Tucson Gem Show who offer small amount of those crystals.
Related links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum
Platinum is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. A heavy, malleable, ductile, precious, grey-white transition metal, platinum is resistant to corrosion and occurs in some nickel and copper ores along with some native deposits. Platinum is used in jewellery, laboratory equipment, electrical contacts, dentistry, and automobile emissions control devices....

www.davidkjoyceminerals.com
This is a rarity!! Native platinum crystals! These rare crystals have been found in quantity only at this location, as far as I know. If you would like to know more details about this rare occurrence, just acccess Mineralogical Record Volume 28, March-April, 1997 for a full article by Cabri and Laflamme. Here are a few details. Apparently these crystals were mined in-situ, from a colluvial deposit. That is a deposit where the valuable minerals have not moved (as they have in an alluvial or placer deposit)but are essentially mined out of rotten weathered rock. The crystals are very sharp, indicating that they have not moved far or at all. The platinum crystals are about 8-10 percent iron and often are coated with gold or associated with gold blebs. They occur in either single crystals but also as interpenetration twins (like cubic fluorite)....


www.fegi.ru
Platinum-chromite and gold mineralization in the massifs with dunite cores (Kondyor, Chad, Peklistov’s Island massif, etc.) and the associated placersThe most thoroughly investigated and described among the massifs with dunite cores is that of the Kondyor massif. As exposed at the present erosion surface, it has the shape of nearly a regular ring with a diameter of 8 km, and its shape is emphasized by a topographic ridge extending up to 600 m high. Based on geophysical and geological data, the massif is a stock with vertical contacts to depths of more than 10 km (Gurovich et al„ 1994). The host rocks are represented by Early Archean metamorphic rocks and Middle Riphean clastic rocks of the platform cover.
The magmatic rocks consist of Late Archean dunites and clinopyroxenites, Archean gneissoid granites, Riphean granitoids, and intrusive and metasomatic rocks of the Mesozoic Aldan complex (Gurovich, 1994). The massif core is 6 km in diameter and consists of dunites and dunite-pegmatites, and it is surrounded by concentric rings composed of green olivine-diopside metasomatic rocks, 0.2 to 50 m wide, and of clinopyroxenites 50-500 m wide. The Aldan complex is represented by three series of rocks: 1) a volcanogenic series of andesites and diorite porphyrites that form funnels
and dikes near the massif, 2) a monzonitoid series of gabbro and koswite (first phase), diorites, monzodiorites, and syenites (second phase), that form sickle-shaped bodies, and 3) an alkaline series of dikes and bushy veins of i)olite-melteigitcs, tensbergites, miaskites, luyavrites, mariupolites, corundum syenites and their pegmatites, veins with alkaline granites, the last two of which are distributed among the massif and host rocks.....

www.eorc.jaxa.jp -
....the area of Siberia facing the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk as observed by GLI in April 2003. Sea ice still remains in the lower right portion of the image. The steep Dzhugdzhur cordillera is covered with snow in the coastal region. Because of this cordillera, the Maya River cannot flow into the Sea of Okhotsk, so it flows north and joins the Ardant River then the Lena River and then flows into the Arctic Ocean. On the left of the figure, you can see the Konder Massif, which resembles a lunar crater. The Konder Massif is located 1,200 km north of Khabarovsk, the central city of the Far Eastern portion of Russia, and is 500 km southeast of Yakutsk, an extremely cold place....