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Discoveries of bright green pyromorphite in China beginning in 1999 aroused great interest in the worldwide collector community. These discoveries produced not just a few, but great numbers of wonderful specimens! The color of the pyromorphite ranges from pale yellow-green through yellow-orange, bright medium-green and dark green. The largest crystals are several centimeters long, which is extraordinary for the species.
INTRODUCTION
At first, Chinese dealers, as is their custom, kept the true locality for the new pyromorphite specimens shrouded in secrecy. Somewhere near Guilin in the autonomous region of Guangxi, it was said, was an abandoned mine in which this extraordinary find had been made. Collectors around the world became wildly enthusiastic and paid very high prices for the first specimens to come out, even though just two years previously a large find of comparable pyromorphite from the San Andrés mine in Villaviciosa, Corboda, Spain had come onto the market, and even though first-class pyromorphite specimens from the Bunker Hill mine, Idaho and from the classic localities of Bad Ems, Germany and the Les Farges mine, France are found in many collections. The highly lustrous green crystals from the Chinese locality are truly superb, and the countless specimens offered, down to the smallest ones, sold very quickly.
LOCATION AND SETTING
By the time the first excitement had settled down and, possibly, most of the best crystal pockets had already been cleaned out, the correct locality finally became known. The well-known tourist city of Guilin lies in the autonomous region of Guangxi, not far from the southwestern border of the province of Hunan. There, the karst terrain and the River Li have built steep green hills of chalk, a landscape unique in China.
Southeast of Guilin, in a branch of the more than 2,000-meter-high Haiyang Mountain, is a lead-zinc orebody straddling two counties and being exploited by two active mines. The principal mine is the Daoping lead-zinc mine, employing about 300 people; it lies on the eastern side of the same ridge, about 30 kilometers from the city of Gongcheng, in Gongcheng County. The other, smaller workings are known as the Yangshuo lead-zinc mine, employing 100 people; it lies on the western side of the mountain ridge, northeast of Yangshuo, in the county of the...