Name: Kolwezite & Malachite ps. Dolomite on Malachite/Chrysocolla ps. Baryte
Brand: The Arkenstone
Price: 1250 USD
Availability: InStock

Kolwezite & Malachite ps. Dolomite on Malachite/Chrysocolla ps. Baryte - image 1

Kolwezite & Malachite ps. Dolomite on Malachite/Chrysocolla ps. Baryte - image 3

Kolwezite & Malachite ps. Dolomite on Malachite/Chrysocolla ps. Baryte - image 4

Updated 18h ago

Kolwezite & Malachite ps. Dolomite on Malachite/Chrysocolla ps. Baryte

An attractive piece of green on blue contrast, showing off the beauty of copper mineralization from this relatively new (as of early 2020s) location for collectible minerals. This is a colorful multiple pseudomorph specimen that seems to have sharp, velvety-dark-green malachite crystals to 1.8 cm, perched atop chrysocolla: These dark crystals that look like primary malachite are NOT malachite - not entirely! They are, rather, mixed malachite-kolwezite by analysis, and replacements of an earlier sharp rhombohedral dolomite crystal phase. This is an aesthetic piece from a small group of specimens that went out to Europe labelled as "malachite on chrysocolla pseudomorphs" in 2021. These were then very carefully analysed extensively by friends in Barcelona of dealer Jordi Fabre (shortly before he retired and sold us a large part of his group of them in 2023). It became clear that this was much more interesting! In his own words: New at Sainte-Marie 2023 were specimens that represent, apart from its evident aesthetics and its world novelty, a complete treatise on mineralogy. The complicated sequence of events that produced these specimens is thought to have started with a cobalt-bearing Dolomite (which has since disappeared during the process), followed by successive substitutions in which more copper was added, leaving as a final result Kolwezite-Malachite in pseudomorphic shapes after crystals of the initial cobalt-bearing Dolomite. All of this complexity atop is perched upon a gorgeous carpet of blue: powder blue Chrysocolla pseudomorphs after Baryte, with a stage of Malachite growth, also pseudomorphic after Baryte. The discovery of this morphological and chemical complexity was published in the French magazine Le Règne Minéral (in January 2024).

$1,250.00