Vivianite (Ref: 7080)

Here we see a classic Bolivian Vivianite specimen featuring a wonderful v-shaped cluster with a 5.4 cm major crystal, surrounded with several smaller ´cousins.´ This specimen features a bunch of sharp, highly lustrous, gem-like, deep blue-green prismatic crystals with very good terminations on a sparkling brown Siderite matrix. The Huanuni mine has produced some of the most beautiful Vivianite specimens in the world, but since the mine was taken over by the Bolivian government a few years ago, high-quality specimens have almost completely disappeared from the market. Due to the enormous tin deposits in this mine, the extraction of colorful phosphates is strictly prohibited, and the flats where these beautiful specimens were found were intentionally flooded to keep miners away. This is a find from around the mid-1990s, when there was a real Vivianite boom in Huanuni. About ten years later, there were no more specimens, and there really haven´t been any since.