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Chalcocite Psm Fossil Wood Malachite & Azurite

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CLB648881

Chalcocite Psm Fossil Wood Malachite & Azurite

Pseudomorph

Description Tabs

Description
Locality: 
Nacimiento Mine, San Pablo, Sandoval County, New Mexico, United States of America
Class: 
Combination
Size Range: 
Small cabinet (7-10 cm)
Size: 
9.7 × 7.7 × 6 cm
Weight: 
490.00gr
Description

A nice piece of fossil wood in sandstone, the wood replaced by black chalcocite which is partly turning to green malachite. Also some blue azurite lines in the encasing sandstone.

Those fossilized logs were used as ore, most of them melted down for the copper. Nowadays this material is very scarce and sought after. As far as I know this is the only locality which had this kind of chalcocite-after-wood pseudomorph.

The specimen is the only one with azurite I had so far.

You can see the original wood structure very clearly.

Mineral Data
What's on the rock

Chalcocite

Formula: 
Cu2S
Strunz: 
2.BA.05
Crystal System: 
Monoclinic
Hardness: 
2.5 - 3.0

Wood

Variety Of: 

Plant

Malachite

Formula: 
Cu2(CO3)(OH)2
Strunz: 
5.BA.10
Crystal System: 
Monoclinic
Hardness: 
3.5 - 4.0

Azurite

Formula: 
Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2
Strunz: 
5.BA.05
Crystal System: 
Monoclinic
Hardness: 
3.5 - 4.0
Type Locality: 
Chessy copper mines, Chessy-les-Mines, Le Bois d'Oingt, Rhône, Rhône-Alpes, France...

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