Tsumeb

Tsumeb lies in the Otavi Mountainland of northern Namibia. From 1907 until 1996 its mine worked a steep, pipe-shaped orebody of copper, lead, zinc and silver in dolomite, followed to more than 1,000 meters below the surface. Two oxidation zones, one near the surface and one deep in the pipe, made Tsumeb a reference locality for collectors. Azurite, malachite, cerussite, smithsonite and dioptase came from it in quantity, along with rare arsenates and germanium minerals. About 340 mineral species are known from the mine, 72 of them first described there. The mine is closed, and nearly all specimens on the market today come from older collections.