Coquimbite

Item Description

Coquimbite is a fairly well known sulfate, but good crystallized specimens are few and far between. There are only a handful of localities that produce really nice Coquimbites, and a serious discovery of this mineral was made in 2009 at the Javier Mine in Peru that produced what are the finest examples of the species extant. This piece when backlit shows a purple hue, despite the fact that it has iron-staining on the surface. The crystals are fairly well-formed for the material, and for the size of the specimen, this is a good representative piece of a mineral that few collectors have in their collections. A minor amount of attached matrix is a nice touch to this large thumbnail / toenail sized specimen.