Native Silver

A large miniature extremely rich in Native Silver from the Balcoll mine at Falset in Tarragona, Spain, a mine about 120 km southwest of Barcelona. Collected around 2005, the specimen has a complete coverage of interwoven wires and filigrees of Native Silver, in varying shades from silver-grey to tin grey and bright metallic bronze. The Native Silver almost entirely masks a largely hidden matrix of snow white sucrosic Calcite. Overlapping an exposed patch of Calcite are what first look like hairs adhering to the surface but are actually superb acicular hairs of bright Native Silver.