Atacamite

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The Lily mine (also spelt Lilly) at Pisco Umay in the Ica region of Peru, is worked for its 'blue Andean opal', but in 1998 an unexpected and fabulous find of Atacamite was made. Atacamite is a copper chloride. This world-class, highly aesthetic miniature has a roughly 3.7 x 1.4 cm area of perfect, acicular bottle green prismatic Atacamite crystals. These beautifully nestle along the centre of a V-shaped, broad-shallow vug lined with glassy Gypsum crystals of the variety Selenite; these range between colourless, snow-white, and delicate aquamarine. The Atacamite forms lustrous glassy crystals to around 1.5 cm long which display perfectly. A magnificent and rare classic and museum-grade Atacamite from this one-off discovery at Lily mine in Peru.