Paralaurionite with Caledonite - image 1

Paralaurionite with Caledonite - image 2

Paralaurionite with Caledonite

Unknown Owner

A colorful combination specimen composed of a pair of two intergrown and very desirable, very rare species from the Mammoth district of old Arizona: paralaurionite and caledonite. The most notable is paralaurionite, a very rare lead chloride-hydroxide, and then Caledonite, a rare lead-copper carbonate. This is a very dramatic, displayable, and even important miniature consisting of a large paralaurionite parallel growth grouping of crystals that is translucent, off-white in color to a pale blue to some slight coloration due to some included caledonite (with isolated small crystals of caledonite elsewhere, as a bonus for contrast). This is an important and very uncommon combination specimen from the Mammoth-Saint Anthony Mine in Arizona! Normally, a good (and quite costly) paralaurionite specimen would have crystals to 1 cm, usually messy and rough. Here we have a huge cluster of almost solid paralaurionite, colorful and pretty on display as well. It is really quite unprecedented. Such pieces would have come in the 1950s-1960s and are now almost nonexistent on market. A lucky find in an old collection we purchased many years ago.