Sulfide minerals

Reduced sulfur bonds as an anion with a significant range of metals (M) to form sulfide minerals of the general form MaSb, although two or more metals exist in many sulfide minerals. Sulfosalt minerals are a more complex subset of sulfide minerals of the general form MaXbSc, where X is typically one or more of the semimetals (As, Sb, Bi). Metals typically found as major cations in sulfide minerals on Earth include Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mo, Ag, Cd, Hg, Tl, and Pb. Metals that can be found as, sometimes important, trace substitutions in sulfide minerals include the Platinum Group Elements (PGE: Pt, Pd, Rh, Ru, Ir, Os), Au, Ga, Ge, In, and Sn. Together, this large group of metal and semimetal cations, are referred to as chalcophileelements (meaning sulfur-loving). However, the PGE and Au behave as siderophile elements when metallic FeNi metal is present (Hayden et al. 2011).