Detailed information
Species
Enargite
Dimensions
19 x 31 x 12
mm
Weight
8 g
Locality
Quiruvilca Mine, Quiruvilca District Santiago de Chuco Province La Libertad Department, Peru
Condition
No recorded repairs
Quiruvilca mine in northern Peru is famed for producing some of the world's finest sulphosalt species in fine crystals. These include Hutchinsonite, Luzonite, Famatinite, Orpiment and Enargite. Most of these were collected during the 1970s and 1980s and now some specimens are starting to get recycled from older collections dating from that time. This very large thumbnail Enargite is beautifully crystallized, forming a pure bed of freestanding dark grey metallic prismatic crystals, individually to 4.5 mm in length. These crystals fan out in different directions making for quite an aesthetic small sulphosalt specimen. A few crystals are missing, where they have broken off at their base, but these do not detract from the quality of the many remaining crystals.