Pyromorphite (ex Bob Reynolds Collection)

Item Description

This piece came to us labeled only as coming from "Australia", thanks to Klaus Neumann who contributed the location and a note (This is from the Black Star Open Pit in Mount Isa Australia. I was in Mount Isa back in 1999 ( underground in the mine at 1000 meters deep). I will say that it has a very uncharacteristic looking matrix, that truly resembles petrified wood (see photo). It's as distinctive as any matrix I've seen for a secondary ore mineral. With that said, the piece is a good quality display specimen hosts dozens of sharp, well-formed, elongated hexagonal prisms of a yellow-golden color measuring up to 7 mm. Most of the crystals are undamaged and look beautiful up close, as you can see some of them show a slight amount of skeletal "hoppering" around the terminations. A really unusual and intriguing Pyromorphite. From the collection of Robert (Bob) Reynolds. Bob was a well-known fossil and mineral expert and former Curator of Earth Sciences at the San Bernardino County Museum in California. The rare species Reynoldsite was named in his honor in 2011.