Morphological, thermoelectrical, geochemical and isotopic anatomy of auriferous pyrite from the Bagrote valley placer deposits, North Pakistan: Implications for ore genesis and gold exploration

The Relationship between Natural Pyrite and Impurity Element Semiconductor Properties: A Case Study of Vein Pyrite from the Zaozigou Gold Deposit in China

“…As a kind of natural semiconductor mineral that is widely distributed within the earth, natural pyrite generally has a thermoelectric effect [5,6,[14][15][16]. The thermoelectric properties of pyrite are affected by various impurity elements contained in it.…”

“…Pyrite (FeS 2 ) is a semiconducting mineral that is widely distributed in the interior of the earth [1][2][3][4]. In recent years, thermoelectric properties and their changes have been extensively studied [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. According to semiconductor theory, pyrite can be divided into two types, namely P-type semiconductors and N-type semiconductors, based on the type of carriers (including holes and electrons, where holes represent positive charges and electrons represent negative charges) and their conductivity types.…”

“…Thermoelectric properties of pyrite in gold deposits are related to the spatial distribution and formation temperature of pyrite: the pyrite formed at lower temperatures or the upper part of the ore body is mostly P-type; the pyrite formed under high-temperature conditions or the lower part of the ore body is mostly N-type. According to this correlation, many scholars have achieved good prospecting results in the exploration of gold deposits, especially in the deep prospecting and prediction [5,6,[14][15][16].…”

Prospecting Potential of the Yanjingou Gold Deposit in the East Kunlun Orogen, NW China: Evidence from Primary Halo Geochemistry and In Situ Pyrite Thermoelectricity

“…The test results of in-situ pyrite thermoelectric property are shown in Supplementary Table S1 and Figure 9. Ore deposit models have been widely developed from pyrite thermoelectric data analysis [39,[47][48][49], and such data have been improved by the development of the in situ method [39].…”

“…The thermoelectric coefficient α value and conduction type of pyrite are affected by homogeneously distributed impurities in the pyrite, defects in the crystal structure, density, and external excitation conditions (i.e., temperature and pressure gradients). Since these factors are affected by mineralization depth, the thermoelectric properties of pyrite can be used as an indicator of depth [40,41,48,54]. Pridmore and Shuey (1976) showed that the lattice of As-containing pyrite is larger than that of free pyrite, and that P-type conductive pyrite can more readily adsorb Au [38].…”