Galena

One of the fascinating aspects of mineralogy is that nature often produces unanticipated paradoxes and one such example at Tsumeb is despite being a lead mine (amongst other metals) and its reputation for being one of the world’s best producers of specimen material, well-crystallised Galena was very much in short supply. This thumbnail is a choice example of crystallized Galena from Tsumeb, dominated by one truncated crystal, seemingly cubic with a four-sided pyramidal development on one face; i.e. a mix of cube and octahedron, yet not cuboctahedral! Some faces are bright silver where perhaps sections have been cleaved-off, but the majority are tarnished to sooty black with characteristic deep striated faces.