Chrysocolla

Technically Chrysocolla and Quartz, this stunningly beautiful display specimen has a far more complicated geochemical back story going on. From new finds in the Tenke-Fungurume area in the Kolwezi mining district, DR Congo, the complexity of how this type of mineralization came about is staggering. This superb cabinet-sized specimen shows the final stages of this process, but clues are all around. Sparkling and glistening, most of its surfaces are encrusted in tiny, colourless, doubly-terminated Quartz crystals through which the colour of underlying minerals projects. The overall layout of the Quartz also provides clues in the form of shapes coated and replaced by the Quartz. The striking and attractive pale turquoise-blue colour seen across most of this specimen is Chrysocolla, a hydrated copper silicate which does not itself form crystals but which likes to replace or pseudomorph other species. In this instance, the bladed form represents the shape of long gone Azurite crystals, but we know from other specimens that the process went first to Malachite replacing the Azurite, and then to Chrysocolla replacing the Malachite. Although quite fragile, this display specimen is truly remarkable and absolutely gorgeous.