Cassiterite: Mount Xuebaoding, Sichuan Province, China

Description

Species: Cassiterite, Muscovite

Locality: Wuzhutang mine, Mount Xuebaoding, Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, China

Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.5 x 3 cm.

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China’s Mount Xuebaoding Tungsten District, located on a 5443 meter tall massif in the country’s rugged western Sichuan Province, has produced what are certainly the world’s best scheelite crystals, and arguably the world’s finest cassiterite specimens as well. This excellent small cabinet-size specimen, mined in the summer of 2020 from a small, relatively new prospect called the Wuzhutang mine, features distinctive, highly-lustrous, complexly twinned black cassiterite crystals with minor muscovite matrix. The specimen exhibits the outstanding luster, complex form, and beautiful intricacy of crystallization that is the hallmark of good Mount Xuebaoding cassiterites. In fine condition as seen. Mark Cross photo.