Description

Detailed Description

This is a remarkable piece and one of my favourites. It is a delicate birds’ nest of copper branches that resemble fine filigree but are in fact all made up of very sharp copper crystals. This piece is wonderful under magnification. It’s also a beautiful display specimen – when supported to stand upright, it looks like a scene from a spruce forest. Gorgeous!

About these Rocklands Mine Copper Specimens

Copper was discovered in the area of present-day Cloncurry in the late 1860s, and many mines have been operated in the district since then. This a semi-arid and hot region, with temperatures sometimes exceeding 50C – these are tough prospecting and collecting conditions! The Rocklands Mine was a relatively recent producer, with the first operations beginning in 2005. It was an open pit operation that exploited a significant sulphide zone and a much smaller oxide zone. These copper specimens were collected during a specimen recovery project in the oxide zone from August to October, 2017. The Rocklands Mine is no longer in operation.