Cerussite

specimen number:
2063829

location:
Tui Mine, Te Aroha, Waikato, New Zealand

description:
A fine thumbnail sized cluster of white lustrous jackstraw cerussite crystals with very little matrix attached. In excellent condition. Neat locality example for the species.

The Tui Mine, located on the slopes of Mount Te Aroha in the Waikato Region of New Zealand, developed within epithermal hydrothermal quartz veins hosted by Miocene volcanic rocks. Gold was discovered in the area during the 1880s, but mid-twentieth-century operations under Norpac Mining focused on base metals, extracting copper, lead, and zinc until closure in the early 1970s. The lead-rich primary sulphide veins contained galena, which weathered near the surface to form secondary secondary minerals. Among these, cerussite occurs in the oxidized zones of the Ruakaka and Champion lodes, forming small white to colorless lead carbonate crystals encrusting altered galena and quartz. Although environmental remediation programs addressed acid mine drainage at the site, specimens of cerussite and associated species from Tui Mine remain notable among collectors of historic regional mineralogy.

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