large Hemimorphite (multiple generations)

Item Description

Multiple generations of colorful hemimorphite cover this amazing large and sculptural rolling specimen from the Mfouati Mine. Beautiful rich baby-blue bubbly hemimorphite botryoids with preferential coatings of secondary pale sky-blue hemimorphite cover much of the piece. Other areas are rich in another generation of glassy, translucent, gray, sheaf-like aggregates of tiny tabular blades. Hefty at 5137 grams or 11.3 pounds mass. The small mine was intermittently active from the late 1930s into the 1980s. This mine is extinct commercially, but artisanal mining by locals has recovered more fine specimens. The Mfouati Mine has produced outstanding wulfenite, dioptase and hemimorphite specimens, among others. See the excellent 2018 locality Mineralogical Record article in Vol. 49, No. 4. A dramatically impressive and colorful large multi-generational hemimorphite from the locale.