PYROMORPHITE

ABOUT THE SPECIMEN

Flashy miniature consisting of many dozens of barrel-shaped pyromorphite crystals centered around a large, bright orange main crystal in a very sculptural arrangement. Most of the smaller crystals have cream-colored terminations, which is uncommon and very desirable for specimens from the famous Bunker Hill. A super interesting feature of this specimen is a few "casts" where the cluster grew over former crystals that were intergrown with the rest and later dissolved. Thus, this piece could be considered an epimorph! The whole thing is in excellent condition, the main crystal is pristine and just has some etching along the top. Pyro's from this legendary and long-defunct mine are considered some of the best worldwide and they're getting more sought after year by year, especially ones as well-formed, unique, and sculptural as this. 

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MORE INFO

The Coeur d'Alene district sits within Middle Proterozoic Belt Supergroup sedimentary rocks - argillites, quartzites, and siderite-bearing units - cut by Cretaceous intrusive stocks and structurally complicated by the Lewis and Clark fault system; the Bunker Hill mine worked a series of argentiferous Pb-Zn veins from 1885 until closure in 1988, producing 165 million ounces of silver alongside lead and zinc over its century of operation. Pyromorphite formed in the oxidized zone above galena through reaction with phosphate sourced from the Belt sediments, with color driven in part by trace arsenic substituting into the phosphate site - Dunn's 1982 Mineralogical Record chemical study documented the arsenic enrichment responsible for the distinctly warm orange-brown hues of the early 1990s finds, setting them apart from the yellower-green 1980s material. Two productive windows defined the specimen history: a mid-1980s glory hole accessed from a high vein that produced multicolored crusts of exceptional luster, and an early 1990s find yielding fat barrel-shaped three-dimensional clusters to 2 cm with a distinctive wet-look surface finish. The mine closed permanently and was designated an EPA Superfund site in 1982 due to widespread lead contamination - no further recovery is possible, making all Bunker Hill pyromorphite genuinely fixed in supply, and the three-dimensional cluster material from the 1990s find particularly scarce.