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[Roger Warin]

Hello,
Following a lecture on phosphates from the Democratic Republic of Congo (Katanga) at our AGAB-Liege club, I rummaged through my drawers looking for cornétite and other phosphates.
I found two or three libethénites, but the rarest specimen I have is definitely a hopéite. It is an aggregate of several crystals on a matrix. It is about the size of a hazelnut.
In addition, the label on this specimen is outdated and its country of origin has disappeared!
Label: Broken Hill, Rhodesia.
Can you help me correct this origin? There can't be many deposits like this.
Hopeite is an orthorhombic zinc phosphate:
ZnZn(PO4)2.4H2O
I have described it on the AGAB website ( https://www.agab.be/ )
The type locality is in Belgium:
Altenberg mine, Kelmis, Liège, Wallonia, Belgium or “La Calamine” in French, about 40 km east of Liège.
The crystals from Kelmis (B) are clear and colorless. Their morphology is of high quality.

Rare

[Knut Eldjarn]

[Roger Warin]

Thank you Knut,
I had forgotten that, because I knew it in 2012 when I described hopéite to illustrate the Agab-Minibul monthly magazine, Liege.
Zambia, formerly known as Northern Rhodesia, and Zimbabwe, formerly Southern Rhodesia, are two separate countries in southern Africa.
But it is the old lessons that stick best. I was taught over 75 years ago that Stanley found Livingstone weakened in Tanzania.
Geologists, gemologists, and amateurs are familiar with the riches of East Africa, especially from Tanzania to Rhodesia, and even as far as South Africa and Madagascar.
A true story about Welsh journalist Sir Henry M. Stanley's search for Dr. David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary presumed lost in Africa, whom he finally found on November 10, 1871. David Livingstone (58) was exploring East Africa and had not seen another European for five years. Stanley took off his hat and uttered the laconic and immortal words: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
This the signboard was found in a school in Brussels.
The maps of Africa have obviously changed.
People were not looking for REE, but metals.

[Roger Warin]

All neutral phosphates are insoluble, except those whose cation is alkaline.
However, copper phosphates are not widely found in the DRC, even though copper is abundant there. I have selected two species that are legendary among Belgian collectors: cornetite and libethenite.
The most famous phosphate in Congo is cornetite from the Mine de l'Etoile (Lubumbashi).
However, other Congolese localities also have it.
The crystals are small, measuring just a few millimeters.