Name: Primary Malachite
Brand: Crystal Classics
Price: 250 USD
Availability: InStock

Updated 4d ago

Primary Malachite

This large miniature specimen of 'primary' Malachite is quite beautiful. It is rare for Malachite to form discrete crystals, other than acicular sprays or replacements of Azurite or other copper-bearing species. In fact it is so unusual, that with a break from convention, specimens of discrete blocky Malachite crystals get given the name "Primary Malachite". Rather confusingly, they are still a secondary mineral, but 'primary' referring to their crystal form being primary rather than replacement of something else. The triangular, almost sphenoidal crystals measure up to 8 mm across and are semi-translucent deep bottle green to forest green with a glassy to velvety lustre richly scattered across a crystallized Quartz matrix. Smaller, millimetre-sized, individual emerald green prismatic Malachite crystals are scattered on the surface of Quartz in between the larger Primary Malachite crystals. An amazing habit and fine specimen of primary Malachite from the famous Mashamba West mine in the Kolwezi mining district of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Mashamba West mine began operations in 1978 and has in recent years been incorporated into the Sicomines copper-cobalt project.

$250.00