Copper with Calcite

specimen number:
8911134

location:
Kipushi Mine, Kipushi, Haut-Katanga, DR Congo

description:

Very rich crystallized twinned native copper to 1.0 cm in length across the front of a crystallized light pink calcite matrix. In good condition. The specimen comes with a previous label from the Alton collection, as well as a label from noted Congo specialist Gilbert Gauthier.

The Kipushi Mine is situated within the world-class Central African Copperbelt in the Haut-Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, near the Zambian border. Its complex geology is hosted within Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks of the Roan Group, where massive, high-grade copper and zinc orebodies formed along a major fault zone through hydrothermal replacement and fluid interaction with carbonaceous shales and dolostones. Artisanal and indigenous groups mined copper at the site as early as the ninth century, while modern industrial exploitation began in 1924 under Union Miniere as the Prince Leopold Mine, quickly earning renown for producing exceptionally rich copper and zinc ores. After decades of heavy historic production, care-and-maintenance periods, and recent major redevelopment, the ultra-high-grade underground mine has resumed operations to rank among the premier global producers of zinc and copper.

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