[3] Volynskite was first discovered and identified between 1960 and 1965 by Marianna Bezsmertnaya and Lada Soboleva who observed thin sections among closely related tellurides in the territory of the Zod gold deposit.
[7]: 129 After three years of hard work, Marianna Bezsmertnaya recalled the first steps in identifying the new mineral: “During a microscopic study of ores from gold deposits in Armenia, M.S.
Amiryan encountered a mineral in the telluride association that differed little in optical properties from tellurobismuthite, with which it was closely intergrown in the form of microscopically small inclusions.
A year later, at the personal request of Marianna Bezsmertnaya, a more detailed quantitative microspectral analysis of the future volynskite was conducted by N. V. Korolev at the State Optical Institute in Leningrad.
According to the chemical composition, optical and X-ray data, a fundamental similarity was noted between the low-temperature modification of AgBiTe2 obtained at the Institute of Semiconductors, the main phase of the compound synthesized by A. Yu.
In the studied samples it was possible to observe it only under a microscope in the form of inclusions up to 0.3 mm in size in tellurobismuthite in association with other tellurides, mainly altaite, and hessite.
[7]: 140 All of the above studies were conducted during the lifetime of the head of the IMGRE [ru] mineralogy department, Igor S. Volynsky, under his direct instructions and using his methods, developed in the mid-1930s and improved in the 1950s.
As a result, the diagnostics of volynskite was repeatedly rechecked and confirmed by the data of the latest micromethods at that time: the study of optical and other physical properties in reflected light, tests on the Korolev microspectral setup, powder diffraction and careful comparison with a compound of the composition AgBiTe2, artificially synthesized in the laboratory.
At the same time, the specific delicate shades of the color of the minerals are noticeably enhanced: All studies and measurements were carried out by L. A. Loginova in the IMGRE [ru] laboratory using the method of Igor S.
For example, at the typical Sotk gold mine, volynskite is found only in contact reaction zones within tellurobismuthite leaflets saturated with altaite and hessite inclusions; galena and freislebenite are often also present.
Similar finds occurred later, in the early 1980s, when microsegregations of volynskite were found in association with pyrite, fahlores, native gold [fr] and hessite.
[12]: 120–121 In the late 1980s, volynskite was also identified and registered in India, in the Kolar gold field (Champion Reef mine zone at a depth of about one and a half thousand meters).
The obtained sample of the mineral was characterized by metasomatic, in the development environment among galena and numerous inclusions of altaite, to which elongated volynskite segregations of 10 to 20x70 μm (microns) were confined.
[13]: 130 In the early 2000s, volynskite micrograins were found in many low-sulfide epithermal deposits of the Kola Peninsula and Northern Karelia, both in the Murmansk Region and in Finland (Pohjois-Karjala).
[15]: 69 Polymineral aggregates composed of tellurides — sylvanite, petzite, hessite, altaite, as well as the rarer volynskite, tellurobismuthite and melonite — were noted in the mid-2010s at tellurium gold deposits in Chukotka.