Natural Cleiophane Green Sphalerite with Quartz Cluster Crystal from Bulgaria 43g

White sugary quartz makes up the body of this small block, and the top third carries the whole story. A dark cleiophane crystal group sits there with pale olive-green rims and one broad triangular face that comes up bright and metallic, and immediately to its right is a cluster of galena crystals in clean silver, each with crisp octahedral faces. A green-olive band of further cleiophane runs along the bottom edge, tying the two ends of the piece together.

Cleiophane, the low-iron green variety of sphalerite, is one of the more collectible minerals to come out of the Bulgarian lead-zinc field in the Rhodope Mountains, and the pairing with sharp silver galena on white quartz is characteristic of the deposits there. Untreated. Sphalerite is 3.5 to 4 on the Mohs scale, galena 2.5 and quartz 7. At 43g this is a comfortable hand specimen.

Natural cleiophane green sphalerite with galena and quartz, Bulgaria, single piece.