George flagged a mineral listing to me last night, an example of kämmererite from Mont Haïto in Togo.
Very rarely do we have to add a new country to our geographical database, but until now we had seen nothing listed from this smaller country in Africa.
The listing by Andreas Jechorek of SystematicXX in Germany is for an old (1970s) piece featuring quite good crystals on a chromite rich matrix.
Haïto is a small area in the Plateau region of Togo, which hosts deposits of nickel, uranium, zinc and chromiun, as well as iron, titanium and some alluvial gold.
The chromium potential for the ultramafic rock at Mount Haïto has been known to prospectors since the early C20th, but only mined by French company Péchiney in the post war years.
During their years of operation (1954-1957) 2.5K tonnes of chromite was extracted from a total estimated reserve of 10K tonnes.
According to more recent surveys further chromium mining potential is inconclusive, though stockpiles of chromite are still present.
Shore Capital - Premier African minerals have produced an excellent report on Mont Haïto/Togo minerals, well worth a read if like me you were not aware of this part of the world before.
Andreas's specimen is a little glimpse into this.
