Chrysocolla

$1,200.00

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Who doesn't love a wonderful baby blue colour? This cabinet-sized specimen from the Tenke-Fungurume area in the Kolwezi mining district, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a very striking colour, and one which is not often seen in mineral specimens. Not only is it colourful and beautiful, but is has a fine geochemical story to tell. An attractive array of pale blue bladed crystals rise up from matrix. These are blades of Chrysocolla - an amorphous copper silicate - coated with a fine layer of colourless Quartz crystals. Of course, Chrysocolla does not form crystals, let alone freestanding bladed crystals. Instead, the Chrysocolla is a pseudomorph, or replacement, of Malachite, but Malachite does not form bladed crystals like these either! So, the Malachite was also a pseudomorph, but probably after bladed Azurite, meaning that this is Quartz coating Chrysocolla pseudomorphs after Malachite pseudomorphs after Azurite. Wonderfully complex and strikingly beautiful.