NAA analysis of gold in minerals from Upper Cretaceous massive copper deposits in Bulgaria

Minerals from deposits Chelopech, Elshitsa, Radka and Krasen have been studied and their gold contents determined by neutron-activation. In all deposits sulphide and sulphosalt minerals show a well-expressed ability to concentrate gold, although their role in individual deposits is not equal. The highest concentration of gold is in bornite, tennantite, enargite and the early generations of pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena and sphalerite. The low content of gold in the late generations of pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena and sphalerite is due to the process of recrystallization and redeposition. The data obtained show that gold has been extracted entirely from the solutions of the early quartz-pyrite stage mineralizations while during the later quartz-sulphosalt-sulphide and quartz-carbonite-sulphate stages it was only re-deposited and concentrated.