Malachite

specimen number:
2292205

location:
L'Etoile du Congo Mine, Lubumbashi, Haut-Katanga, DR Congo

description:

A grouping of green crystallized malachite stalactites. In good condition all around.

The L'Etoile du Congo mine, located near Lubumbashi in the Haut-Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a major copper and cobalt deposit famous for producing exceptional specimens of primary and secondary copper minerals, notably malachite, chrysocolla, and heterogenite. Geologically, it is a sediment-hosted stratiform deposit located within the Central African Copperbelt, where intense supergene weathering altered primary copper-cobalt sulfides in the Neoproterozoic Katanga Supergroup dolostones and shales into rich secondary carbonate and silicate zones. Originally discovered in the pre-colonial era, industrial-scale open-pit quarrying and underground operations began under Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga around 1911, making it one of the earliest mechanized mines in the region. Active large-scale commercial extraction occurred intermittently throughout the twentieth century, and following a period of decline and reorganization, the mine saw a major resurgence in open-pit operations and mechanized processing in the 2000s and 2010s, with various corporate and artisanal extractions continuing to yield ore and collector specimens into the 2020s.

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