CHRYSOCOLLA ps. after MALACHITE with QUARTZ and MALACHITE

SPECIMEN DESCRIPTION

This specimen from the Tenke-Fungurume area in the Kolwezi mining district, Democratic Republic of Congo is both beautiful visually and beautifully complex geologically. Comprising an attractive array of pale blue bladed crystals rising up from matrix it is only when one realises what these crystals are, or should I say "were" that the complexity arises. These are blades of Chrysocolla - an amorphous copper silicate - coated with a fine layer of colourless Quartz crystals, but Chrysocolla does not form crystals, let alone freestanding bladed crystals. The Chrysocolla is a pseudomorph, or replacement, of Malachite, but Malachite does not form bladed crystals like these either! So, the Malachite was also a pseudomorph, but after bladed Azurite, meaning that these are Quartz coating Chrysocolla pseudomorphs after Malachite pseudomorphs after Azurite - complicated or what!