Product Details

Pyromorphite — Yangshuo Mine, Guangxi, China Pyromorphite is one of the great collector minerals, and there's a reason it shows up in so many display cases: lead chlorophosphate (Pb₅(PO₄)₃Cl) that crystallises in the hexagonal system, typically as barrel-shaped prisms in clusters, or as druses on matrix. It's the phosphate end of a series with mimetite and vanadinite, and it forms in the oxidised zones of lead deposits, where lead-bearing solutions meet phosphate. That's a narrow set of conditions, which is exactly why good pyromorphite turns up scattered rather than everywhere. Yangshuo, in Guangxi, China, is one of the classic pyromorphite localities, and the Chinese material is prized for crystal size and a rich, saturated green that stands out beside just about anything else in a case. This one is candy apple green — that bright, glassy green that reads almost like enamel — and it's a floater crystal: grown free, with no point of attachment anywhere, which is exactly what col...