CERUSSITE

GALENA’S GIFT OF A STUNNING SECONDARY MINERAL

- BOB JONES

Galena is not exactly a showcase mineral. You seldom see it prominently exhibited at shows. It does form in very attractive cubes and octahedrons and even twins, but its strong gray-black color or unusual crystal forms do not exhibit well. But what galena lacks in eye appeal, it makes up for as the source of delightful and colorful daughter minerals.

Using decomposing galena, Mother Nature produces a wonderful suite of secondary lead minerals. Reaching deep into the earth — at times over 1,000 feet in desert regions — surface waters charged with oxygen and plant acids attack deep-seated sulfide ores, including galena, breaking down to release lead ions and combine with carbonates, sulfates, arsenates, or oxides. The process produces common colorful beauties like wulfenite, mimetite, pyromorphite vanadinite, and cerussite in abundance. Rare lead minerals like leadhillite also form.