Crocoite

Crocoite from the Adelaide Mine, Dundas, Tasmania, Australia, measuring 75 × 46 × 20 mm and weighing 66 grams. A bright piece from the single most famous Crocoite mine in the world.

Crocoite, lead chromate PbCrO4, develops its intense orange-red colour and slender prismatic habit in the oxidised zone above lead ore, where chromium from nearby serpentinised rock becomes available to groundwater carrying lead from weathering Galena. The Adelaide Mine was worked as a dedicated specimen mine from the 1970s under Frank Mihajlowits, who became known around the world as the Crocoite King for the quality of material he brought up, and since 2004 the Adelaide Mining Company has continued specimen mining on the same lease.

Specimens from the Adelaide Mine sit in major museum and private collections worldwide, including the mineralogical collection at Harvard, and a piece of this colour and form is a genuine taste of what made the locality's reputation. This piece is from the Anne McDonald Collection.