Dioptase (rare locality specimen)

Item Description

A rarely seen Dioptase specimen from the Van der Plas Mine on the Kaokoveld Plateau of Namibia featuring a fine quality, robust, sharp, lustrous, trigonal crystal of a rich emerald green color measuring 1.8 cm, sitting beautifully at the top of the underlying Calcite and host rock matrix. The crystal is good sized and I love the aesthetics. No real damage that I can find, though there are a couple of spots that appear to show either a bit of etching or possibly some negative crystal faces. When backlit, the crystal shows a bit of internal gemminess / translucency. If you look on mindat.org, you'll see that although Dioptase is reported from this mine, there are no specimens for comparison, so this is certainly a rare locality piece, and would make a great addition to any collection of Namibian minerals or worldwide Dioptase specimens.
From the collection Dr. Robert ("Rob") Bowell, a geochemist and adjunct professor in Geochemistry and Mineralogy at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Rob has a background in applied geology in tropical and deeply weathered terrains, he also has done mining consulting in the fields of due diligence, financial and technical audits, process chemistry, environmental geochemistry, environmental engineering and mineralogy.