| | |
|
|
Specimens Index Search Most Recent First Minerals Index Collections Index |
291 Sphaerocobaltite on Dolomite Shinkolobwe Mine (Kasolo Mine), Shinkolobwe, Central area, Shaba Cu belt, Shaba (Katanga), Congo (Zaïre) small-cabinet 5.5 x 3.2 x 3.7 cm Pat: Of all the colors of salrose, wine red is the rarest. I get about one wine red specimen for every 15 pink ones. This speicmen has a particularly fine and sparkly druse of the deepest true wine red salrose on a grey dolomite matrix. There are two tiny dabs of malachite on the rock's face, and the edge is lined with lighter pink salrose crystals. Really quite beautiful! Sphaerocobaltite is a relatively rare mineral formed when cobalt infuses a calcite mineral soup and turns it into a gorgeous shade of hot pink. The difference between Sphaerocobaltite and cobaltian calcite is that cobaltian calcite contains only a trace of cobalt, usually resulting in a pale pink to deep rose color. In Sphaerocobaltite, the presence of calcium and a higher concentration of cobalt produce a true hot pink color. In examples from mines in the Shaba district of the Congo, you often find Sphaerocobaltite displaying as a thin drusy crust over a dolomite matrix, as you see here. ----- Photos courtesy of / ©2004 Patricia B. Smith
label Mineral Occurances
label created: 2004-12-09 06:55:02; modified: 2020-02-09 21:12:00 |
|
)