Plumboselite (w. clausthalite, mimetite and smithsonite)

TSNB644
Specimen
Innes, J.Pinch, W.W.
Exhibit 1. Plumboselite (w. clausthalite, mimetite and smithsonite); 24 mm.
Exhibit 1. Plumboselite (w. clausthalite, mimetite and smithsonite); 24 mm.
Image Credit: Malcolm Southwood
Exhibit 2. 8 mm field of view.
Exhibit 2. 8 mm field of view.
Image Credit: Malcolm Southwood
Exhibit 3. 0.24 mm field of view.
Exhibit 3. 0.24 mm field of view.
Image Credit: Matt Swain
Thumbnail by 1Thumbnail by 2Thumbnail by 3

Specimen Title

Plumboselite (w. clausthalite, mimetite and smithsonite)

Associated Minerals

clausthalite; mimetite; smithsonite; vaterite

Principal Mineral

Plumboselite

Size

Thumbnail; 24mm

Location in the Mine

Second oxidation zone (?)

Provenance

Innes, J.; Pinch, W.W.

Collection

MGMH; 2020.7.791

Collected by

John Innes

Entry Number

Specimen; TSNB644

Associated Minerals

clausthalite; mimetite; smithsonite; vaterite

Description

Rhombohedral crystals of pinkish-grey smithsonite (to 3 mm), with golden-yellow mimetite crystals (to 8 mm) rest on dark grey, sub-metallic clausthalite. Under magnification (Exhibit 2), the clausthalite is peppered with minute white crystals including feathery aggregates of fibrous plumboselite crystals (Exhibit 3).

Three specimens of clausthalite were collected by TCL mineralogist John Innes in the late 1970s. One of them, of which this is a portion, was acquired by the late Bill Pinch and provided the holotype for plumboselite (conserved at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, California, catalogue number 63264). This is the remainder of the Pinch specimen, now held at MGMH Harvard. The specimen is believed to have originated from the second oxidation zone (Kampf et al. 2011).