Galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, aikinite and stannite. Dawa, Nigeria




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250µm


Galena (white, bottom) shows characteristic triangular polishing pits (black, right centre) due to plucking along (100). It is intergrown with a harder cream copper-lead-bismuth sulphosalt with the optical properties of aikinite (left centre and top centre). Sphalerite (grey, top left) has few chalcopyrite (yellow) inclusions whereas the aikinite has rare small stannite (brown-grey, centre, cut by northwest-oriented scratch) inclusions.


Polished block, plane polarized light, x 80, air



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