Stibnite on Calcite included by Boulangerite - image 1

Stibnite on Calcite included by Boulangerite - image 2

Stibnite on Calcite included by Boulangerite

Unknown Owner

Help improve this recordNo owner is registered for this specimen yet. If it's yours or you know more about it, you can add the owner, provenance, publications and other details.

We are certainly aware that this looks quite like somebody took a stibnite and glued it to a calcite ball...but this crazy geometric assemblage of a stibnite cluster floating on a perfect spherical calcite, is simply nature in all its surprise. The stibnite is 4 cm tip to tip. It perhaps formed elsewhere in the pocket and then fell off of a stibnite cluster even as the calcite was forming attaching solidly and embedding itself in the growing calcite as the spherical aggregate formed. We know this location's calcite material well, and specimens show interesting growth patterns including many examples that are unlikely-looking spherical aggregates, "balls" to be blunt. It is simply luck that a stibnite fell or slid or was moved by solution into a growing calcite where it clearly stuck. No repairs. Complete. One of the many interesting specimens selected and held over the lifelong collection of Dick Hauck, founder of the Sterling Hill Mining Museum. We were privileged to be able to purchase a small group of his "mineral oddities" during the Covid years. This combination piece is certainly one that will invite both viewing and talking.