Sulfopadmaite (PdBiS) has become the 15th mineral discovered in Karelia. The material was sampled in the 1980s during an expedition to the Srednyaya Padma deposit in the Medvezhyegorsky District of the republic, on the Zaonezhsky Peninsula. The new mineral was actually discovered using electron microprobe and X-ray diffraction methods in a laboratory at Moscow State University (MSU).

The discovery is a results of the work of a joint team of specialists from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Fersman Mineralogical Museum, and Saint Petersburg State University (SPbU). The first author of the discovery was Mikhail Strelnikov, Doctoral Student at MSU Faculty of Geology, Department of Mineralogy. Contributions were also made by Sergey Britvin (SPbU), Vasily Yapaskurt (MSU), Victor Gekimyants (MSU), Atali Agakhanov (Mineralogical Museum), Pavel Plechov (Mineralogical Museum), and Igor Pekov (MSU).

Sulfopadmaite is a sulfurous analog of padmaite, a new form of palladium. The difference from padmaite, which is a palladium and bismuth selenide, is that it has sulfur instead of selenium. The mineral is confined to clausthalite-chromceladonite-carbonate veins. It is closely associated with aikinite, malyshevite, frudite, sobolevskite, and native gold, platinum, and bismuth.

The new mineral was presented in September 2025 in Petrozavodsk at the Karelian International Stone Processing Expo Forum. The discovery was presented by Pavel Plechov, Director of the Fersman Mineralogical Museum and Professor at MSU Faculty of Geology.

– When the 'Neva Expedition' searching for uranium ores found the Srednyaya Padma deposit on the Zaonezhsky Peninsula, it was a major scientific discovery. Its vanadium-rich ores are virtually unmatched worldwide. It also turned out that the deposit’s mineralogy was rich in general. Three new minerals were discovered right away: padmaite (PdBiSe), malyshevite (PdBiCuS3), and sudovikovite (PtSe2). Two of the three minerals contained compounds of platinum and palladium with selenium – it was for the first time that such minerals were found, – shared Oleg Lavrov, Head of the Museum of Precambrian Geology at the Institute of Geology KarRC RAS, who participated in finding the material in which the new mineral was later discovered.

He claims that considering the deposit’s rich mineralogy, other discoveries could have been made there, but new samples are unavailable. This was an exploratory mine, which is now closed and flooded, while finding anything on the mine waste dumps is problematic as they are now almost completely covered in vegetation. Only the material collected from the operating mine in the 1980s is available.

– A characteristic feature of the site is roscoelite – vanadium mica that has formed there. As a result of processes occurring in the Earth's crust, the Paleoproterozoic host rocks aged about 2 billion years were exposed to solutions saturated with chemical elements. The source of these solutions and their nature are not yet fully understood. This impact resulted in the formation of rocks enriched in chemical elements, metasomatites, – explained Oleg Lavrov, clarifying that the expedition was primarily searching for uranium-enriched minerals. Uranium mineralization was also present there, but in less than required quantities.

As the specialist emphasized, the newly discovered mineral is primarily of scientific interest. Its very discovery indicates that the mineralogy of this site is not fully studied, and we should expect new minerals being discovered.

Previously, analysis of the material extracted from the Srednyaya Padma deposit has led to the discovery of the mineral selenojunoite (Cu2Pb3Bi8(Se,S)16). In the summer 2023, the International Commission on New Minerals approved it as a new mineral species.