YELLOW PYROMORPHITE SPECIMEN

YELLOW PYROMORPHITE SPECIMEN

A great  Yellow Pyromorphite Specimen with vibrant colour.  Good crystals on an interesting matrix and a top location make this a very collectable mineral specimen!  It is hard to come across this mineral from Broken Hill these days, and this piece has lovely yellow crystals clustered across the matrix.  A great piece to boost or start your very own Aussie mineral collection.  The close up pics look great.  Not a common mineral and this one has a great display of crystals.

Dimensions:
5.3cm x 8.5cm x 5cm, 239g.

Location:
Broken Hill, NSW.

Pyromorphite:
Pb5(PO4)3Cl.

A member of the Apatite family.  Pyromorphite shares the same structure with apatite and therefore crystals of the two will have similar shapes.  Pyromorphite also forms a chemical series with two other minerals; Mimetite (Pb5(AsO4)3Cl) and Vanadinite (Pb5(VO4)3Cl).  This series is a little different than most chemical series which involve substitution of cations such as calcium for magnesium.  Instead, this series substitutes its basic chemical units the anion groups; phosphate (PO4), arsenate (AsO4) and vanadate (VO4).  Green Mimetite or yellow Pyromorphite can make identification between the two difficult, but usually pyromorphite is green and mimetite is yellow.  Vanadinite is usually red.  Pyromorphite’s main characteristic is its unique crystal habit of stacked barrel shaped crystals that branch out in a way that is reminescent of some branching cactus varieties.  So please check out carefully this specimen available.