3.6" Dark Green Chrysocolla Crystals - Cyber Monday Deal!

This is a beautiful specimen of botryoidal Chrysocolla crystals and Malachite from the Shaba Province in Zaire.

Malachite is an intense green copper-based mineral that can be found in a wide variety of forms. Malachite can grow in botryoidal masses, stalactitic formations, and reniform formations, typically as a tight cluster of fanning fibrous needles that make up a seemingly solid mass. As layers continue to stack during formation, banded patterns can sometimes begin to take shape, explaining the rings in all shades of green seen on most polished malachite specimens.

Malachite results from the weathering of other copper ores, and is very often found associated with other copper-based minerals such as azurite and chrysocolla. It can be found in copper deposits around the world, but the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the primary source for polished malachite and mineral specimens.

Malachite has been prized since ancient times, first as a utilitarian copper ore, then as an ornamental stone. Due to its value as a decorative stone, it is rarely mined as a copper ore anymore.


Chrysocolla is also a copper based mineral which forms in the oxidation zones of copper ore bodies and is frequently associated with Malachite. A 2006 study has produced evidence that chrysocolla may be a microscopic mixture of the copper hydroxide mineral spertiniite, amorphous silica and water.
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DETAILS
SPECIES
Malachite & Chrysocolla
LOCATION
Shaba Province, Zaire
SIZE
3.6x2.7x1"
CATEGORY
ITEM
#35645