Home > Copper Minerals – January 21 > MS1506 Buttgenbachite
Buttgenbachite - Sold
- Tenke Fungurume mine
- Fungurume
- Lualaba Province
- D.R.C.
- 3.2 by 1.8 by 1.6 cm – Thumbnail specimen (fits into a 2.5 cm cube)
Buttgenbachite is a complex hydrous copper nitrate chloride. Schoep (1925) named the mineral in honor of Professor Henri Buttgenbach (1874-1964), Belgian mineralogist, at the University of Liège. Buttgenbach authored two significant topographic mineralogies: Minéralogie du Congo Belge (1925) and Les Minéraux de Belgique et du Congo Belge (1947).
In a 2018 discovery at Tenke Fungurume, pockets of exotic copper nitrates and oxides were found in massive cuprite. Material appeared at the Denver and Munich mineral shows. Buttgenbachite forms blue crystal sprays to 3 mm in a cuprite pocket. Green brochantite needles fill the cuprite-crystal lined pocket. There is likely more buttgenbachite hidden under fibrous brochantite. Nice for the species.
