Cassiterite

specimen number:
2063679

location:
Inverell, Gough Co., New South Wales, Australia

description:
Excellent thumbnail with a brilliant bright lustrous grouping of twinned cassiterite crystals measuring 1.8 x 1.7 x 1.1 cm in size standing straight up from matrix. Well proportioned and in great condition.

Inverell, located in Gough County in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia, sits on a complex geological basement of Paleozoic granite intrusions and metamorphic rocks that were heavily enriched with tin and other heavy minerals. Following the initial discovery of tin along Elsmore Creek in 1871, the area quickly grew into one of Australia's premier tin-mining hubs, attracting thousands of miners who extracted coarse stream tin and lode deposits from alluvial gravels and greisenized granite veins. Cassiterite, a heavy tin oxide mineral, formed the principal economic ore of the district, occurring both as water-worn pebbles in alluvial workings and as dark, lustrous, well-crystallized specimens in hard-rock veins. Historical mining operations flourished into the twentieth century, and while large-scale commercial extraction has ceased, the region remains famous among mineral collectors for producing exceptional black to reddish-brown cassiterite crystals alongside sapphires, topaz, and quartz.

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