Piromorfita

Pyromorphite is a lead chlorophosphate of the apatite group, isomorphous with vanadinite and mimetite, crystallising in the hexagonal system and forming in the oxidation zone of lead deposits.

Typical habits are hexagonal prisms, sometimes barrel‑shaped, as well as acicular aggregates or compact coatings. Colours range from green to yellow and brown, with olive and orange tones governed by impurities and formation conditions. It commonly shows dense growth and complete coatings in the oxidation zone of lead. At San Andrés it develops at contacts between limonite and barite.

San Andrés specimens rank among the most celebrated for intense green colour, vitreous lustre and well‑developed crystals. Early workings there produced very rich greens with somewhat less perfect morphologies, a trait valued in classic Iberian collecting. Sardinia yields granular aggregates in intense greens with small but sharp crystals. In China, the early‑2000s finds at the Daoping Mine (Guangxi), with prismatic habit and saturated apple‑green colour, rivalled the French Les Farges, the Spanish San Andrés and the American Bunker Hill material, and are noted for crystal fineness.

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