WARIKAHNITE with Leiteite

Unknown Owner

This great toenail-sized specimen features two of the all-time rarities for which Tsumeb mine is so famed and has potential for more too. Not only that, but they are attached to matrix - a dark grey sulphide/sulpharsenide. Most prominent is a crystallized aggregate (1.7 x 1.4 cm in area) of sectile pearlescent white Leiteite, an extremely rare zinc arsenate described from Tsumeb mine as a new species in the late 1970s, and this remains the only known natural occurrence. To have a lovely specimen of Leitite with the context of surrounding matrix is fine enough, but to have the association with an even rarer Type Species from Tsumeb - Warikahnite - is even more exceptional. It forms 1 to 2 mm scale orange patches embedded within the edges of the Leitite, but there are unidentified areas of a similar sized blue phase that could prove to be another rarity. Ex Weyand Collection.