Claringbullite, Brochantite, Malachite, Cuprite - image 1

Claringbullite, Brochantite, Malachite, Cuprite

$4,500.00

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3,415 for sale·787 sold

This is a very important, rich, and colorful multi-mineral miniature from the Ojuela Mine in Mexico. The matrix of the piece is predominantly massive, iridescent-red cuprite transected by one particular blue veinlet dominated by Claringbullite, a very rare copper hydroxyhalide species, named after the former Keeper of Mineralogy of the British Museum, Gordon F. Claringbull. The species is found in just over a dozen localities worldwide, although as micros and not in such rich color as we see here. The co-type localities for the species are the M'sesa Mine in Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Nchanga Mine in Zambia, but were mined a few decades ago. There were some beautiful contemporary pieces later found at the famous Ojuela Mine in Mexico, and this piece is a great example of these finds in the early 2000s (the first find of this species here, in 100 years of mining Ojuela!). It features attractive rich blue, platy, microcrystalline aggregates of claringbullite in the center of the veinlet along with green, recumbent needles of brochantite on a flat fracture surface and spots of green malachite. One side has abundant, intergrown, 1 cm, ivory colored calcite rhombohedrons. If you collect rare minerals or Ojuela Mine minerals, this is a great opportunity to obtain a complex and colorful combination specimen that includes extremely rare claringbullite. From an important systematic collection of species we bought long ago, in Brazil.