Malachite

Unknown Owner

Attractive spoon lustrous botryoidal crystallized malachite on matrix. In good condition, very slight scratching present as seen. This is really fine for the locality, specimens from here are rarely seen available on the market today. I would guess that this was collected in the 1970s. Area E Open Pit in Kitwe, Zambia is part of the Nkana mining complex within the Central African Copperbelt, one of the worlds major copper producing regions. Mining in the Kitwe area began in the 1920s under the Rhodesian Selection Trust, with development of both underground and open pit operations to exploit copper and associated cobalt mineralization hosted in sedimentary rocks. Area E was developed as a large open pit to access near surface ore and became an important source of copper concentrate for the Nkana concentrator and smelter. Today the Nkana operations, including Area E, are operated by Mopani Copper Mines and remain a key contributor to Zambias copper industry and economy.