Magnetite with Carbonate-rich Hydroxylapatite

Item Description

The area around Cerro Huanaquino is best known for its excellent Magnetite specimens, but a close second behind these pieces are the attractive and very well crystallized Carbonate-rich Hydroxylapatite crystals. Carbonate-rich Hydroxylapatite is actually a variety of Hydroxylapatite, and is well known from a fair number of world localities, but not often are the crystals as large, attractive and well-formed as the Bolivian specimens. This piece is a great cabinet sized specimen featuring a few prisms of Carbonate-rich Hydroxylapatite with well-defined hexagonal form and a pale peach-tan color. The Hydroxylapatites are surrounded by sharp, lustrous, metallic, black, "Alpine-type" octahedra of Magnetite. This is one of the better examples of this rare material that I have handled (they are EXTREMELY difficult to obtain on matrix!), and would make a great addition to a rare mineral suite, or a suite of Bolivian specimens. If you're a rare species collector, this is also a great opportunity to obtain a good sized display piece of a species that is often only found in crude or microscopic crystals.