Sulphide Minerals

The importance of the sulphide and related minerals as ores need not be emphasized as it has been a known fact since ancient times. Nowadays many of them have wide additional use as diamagnetic, paramagnetic and antiferromagnetic semiconductors, as optically active crystals, etc. This explains the extensive studies carried out during the last few decades, both on naturally occurring sulphides sensu lato, and on artificially obtained analogous phases. The literature dealing with these...
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The importance of the sulphide and related minerals as ores need not be emphasized as it has been a known fact since ancient times. Nowadays many of them have wide additional use as diamagnetic, paramagnetic and antiferromagnetic semiconductors, as optically active crystals, etc. This explains the extensive studies carried out during the last few decades, both on naturally occurring sulphides sensu lato, and on artificially obtained analogous phases. The literature dealing with these compounds is enormous and almost impossible to grasp, being dispersed in the field of mineralogy, petrology, economic mineral deposits, chemistry, physical chemistry, solid state physics, metallurgy, etc. Perhaps that is the reason why there are limited publications generalizing one or another aspect of them only. Ivan Kostov is Professor at the University of Sofia, Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Geological Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and of the National Natural History Museum. He is a well-known specialist in mineralogy, has numerous publications on crystal chemistry, morphology, genesis and systematics of minerals, a widely circulated textbook of mineralogy translated and published by Oliver & Boyd, England, and by the Mir Publishing House, USSR, and a textbook of crystallography translated and published in the USSR. Together with associates (one of them the co-author) he published the book Minerals of Bulgaria, at present the only comprehensive such book for that country. He is honorary member of many mineralogical and geological societies and member of "Leopoldina." Jordanka Minceva-Stefanova is Professor, Head of the Section of Mineralogy at the Geological Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She is a leading specialist in sulphide mineralogy, with numerous publications on strata-bound sulphide ores in Bulgaria and adjacent countries, and on problems of isomorphic substitution, crystal morphology and mineral genesis. She is national representative in the IMA Commission on Ore Microscopy. Together with other colleagues she worked out The Mineralogical Dictionary of the Carpatho-Balkan Region.