Plancheite

specimen number:
2062717

location:
Shinkolobwe Mine, Kambove, Haut-Katanga, DR Congo

description:
Rich attractive blue acicular crystals of plancheite across the top of matrix. A good example for the species, in great condition. From the 1990s. The specimen comes with a previous label from the collection of Ray DeMark.

The Shinkolobwe Mine in the Haut-Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, located near Kambove, is historically renowned for holding some of the richest and purest uranium and radium deposits in the world, which famously supplied material for the Manhattan Project. Geologically situated within the Central African Copperbelt, the deposit is hosted in folded and faulted Proterozoic sedimentary rocks, specifically within complex megabreccias of the Roan Group. Hydrothermal fluids circulating through these dolomitic shales and carbonate rocks concentrated multiple metallic elements, creating a diverse assemblage of secondary minerals. Among the notable mineral specimens found within the broader Katanga region is plancheite, a striking blue hydrated copper silicate mineral that typically forms through the weathering and secondary alteration of primary copper sulfide ores in these copper-cobalt deposits.

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