MACPHERSONITE

SPECIMEN DESCRIPTION

Macphersonite is the much rarer polymorph of lead carbonate sulphate hydroxide (alongside Leadhillite and Susannite) and is generally only found in microscopic crystals. This is what we have here, but from Kombat mine in Namibia. Small in size, the creamy white pearlescent plates (which are marked with an arrow, and measure 1 x 1.5 mm in area) are embedded in dense grey and cream mottled matrix, which I will not attempt to provide identifications of due to the complexity of Kombat mine mineralogy. This specimen comes with collection labels from Dr Eduard Lopatka in Austria and Dr Hans-Jurgen Wilke (1925-2014) in Germany who obtained it in 1999 from Sidney Williams (1933-2006) in Arizona (with his Globo de Plomo business label).