Chrysocolla ps. after Malachite ps. after Azurite with Quartz - image 1

Chrysocolla ps. after Malachite ps. after Azurite with Quartz

$2,000.00

$40.00 shipping
Seller offers an extended return window of up to 30 days
Ships from USA

Crystal ClassicsFeatured

Tucson, Arizona, USA

7,543 for sale·132 sold

This specimen from the Tenke-Fungurume area in the Kolwezi mining district, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is both beautiful visually and beautifully complex geologically. Comprising a gorgeous array of intense turquoise-blue bladed crystals rising up from a thin bed of matrix it is only when one realizes what these crystals are, or should I say "were" that the complexity arises. These are blades of Chrysocolla - an amorphous copper silicate - coated with an extremely fine layer of colourless Quartz microcrystals, but Chrysocolla does not form crystals, let alone freestanding bladed crystals. The Chrysocolla is a pseudomorph and epimorph - replacement and coating - of Malachite, but Malachite does not form bladed crystals like these either! So, the Malachite is also a pseudomorph, but probably after bladed Azurite, meaning that these are Quartz coating Chrysocolla epimorphs after Malachite pseudomorphs after Azurite. The individual 'blades' exceptionally reach 4 cm in length, but are mostly around 1.5 cm. Wonderfully complex and strikingly beautiful.