Tennantite, Wulfenite, Dolomite with manganese oxides

Item Description

This is a rare, and almost unique combination piece from Tsumeb featuring Tennantite, saddle-shaped Dolomite crystals, Wulfenite crystals amongst other minerals with notable architectural manganese oxide forms. Off-white, lustrous, compound clusters of saddle-shaped Dolomite crystals dominate much of the piece, mainly due to its more obvious color, followed by unusual forms of charcoal gray manganese oxides that lack a distinct shape, but could be pseudomorphs of some kind. The saddle-shaped Dolomite crystals are distinct as each "crystal cluster" is really composed of numerous, small, individual, saddle-shaped Dolomite crystals that are in parallel growth. One highly unusual addition here if you look closely: The metallic-brown crystals amidst the metallic gray crystals are indicated to be Hematite after Tennantite pseudomorphs based on the Pohl catalog. It is probably true - and makes a nice contrast! There is so much going on in this piece it's almost easy to miss the numerous, scattered, translucent, brown-orange, bladed and tapered 3 to 6 mm crystals of wulfenite distributed around the piece! A very unusual combination and pseudomorph specimen we very rarely see from Tsumeb! Purchased from Star Van Scriver in the early 2000s.