Malachite

specimen number:
2292158

location:
Haut-Katanga, DR Congo

description:

Attractive green sparkling botryoidal malachite across the top of matrix. Slight micro-damage on one side, still in good condition.

Haut-Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo forms the core of the Central African Copperbelt, famous for massive sediment-hosted stratiform copper-cobalt deposits. Geologically, these world-class deposits are hosted within Neoproterozoic Katangan Supergroup metasedimentary rocks, where primary copper sulfides like chalcopyrite and bornite occur alongside extensive supergene zones rich in malachite and chrysocolla. While indigenous populations mined and smelted copper in the region for centuries, large-scale industrial open-pit and underground operations began in 1906 under Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga (UMHK). Following Congolese independence, the operations were nationalized under Gecamines in 1967, and despite production slumps in the late twentieth century, modern joint ventures and international investments revitalized the district's open-pit mines, which continue extensive production into the 2020s.

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