Description

Detailed Description

Gorgeous small cabinet specimen of delicate white barite blades coated by sparkly bright vanadinite crystals.  The longest barite blade measures 2.4 cm. Of course it’s a great association piece, but to me it’s a barite specimen with vanadinite adding colour and making it special.

About the Vanadinite/Barite Workings at Coud’a

The Coud’a workings involve a lot of hard hand-tunneling through solid rock – it’s incredible the hard work involved. Once an underground working is depleted or too dangerous, the miners start again from surface, and tunnel straight down through hard rock for 8 weeks to arrive in the producing zone again. Only once in a while do they come out with specimens of this fine quality. If you’d like to see more about the Mibladen Mining District, including photos of some of the vanadinite workings, see Morocco: The Northern Sahara and the Atlas Mountains (Part 2). (Note, the big hole depicted in the first photograph in the other half of the article – see Part 1 –  is a barite/vanadinite specimen-mining operation at Coud’a.)