Cobre Mine, El Cobre, Mun. de Concepción del Oro, Zacatecas, Mexico

A very attractive specimen from the important discovery of tennantite-tetrahedrite found in the late 1960's and early 1970's at the El Cobre Mine in Zacatecas, Mexico.

The specimen features numerous, well-formed, lustrous, silvery-metallic crystals of tennantite-tetrahedrite on a nicely contrasting matrix of small milky quartz crystals. This occurrence was written about in detail by John S. White Jr., in the May-June, 1972 issue of the Mineralogical Record (v.3, p 115-119). White determined the tennantite-tetrahedrite to be a oriented overgrowth over single crystals of chalcopyrite. He found the layer of tennantite-tetrahedrite to be of remarkably uniform thickness, about 0.5mm. What makes this specimen so very special is that the tennantite-tetrahedite crystals are liberally sprinkled across two large quartz coated "discs" which appear to be a pseudomorphs after calcite(?) and/or barite(?). The specimen measures 150mm x 150mm x 100mm. This is a special and important specimen!