Greenockite, Woodlawn, New South Wales

Greenockite is fairly common in Australian lead-zinc orebodies, but generally occurs as a bright yellow coating or crust. Woodlawn produced some of the nicest crystals that have been found, if not a little small.

Deep red crystals on orange coatings over an even earlier spherical generation in cavities in sulphide ore. The greenockite is VERY fluorescent except for the red crystals! A thin coating of cerussite on the galena crystal indicated by the pale-yellow fluorescence gives added interest to this specimen under longwave ultraviolet light. In the matrix, sphalerite also exhibits a yellowish fluorescence.

Pyrite and tennantite-tetrahedrite crystals are also present.

Photo width 5mm. Stack of 3 images.