PROVINCE GUIDE
Hubei Province: Calcite Country with Bronze Age Roots
Hubei's Fengjiashan mine produces China's best calcite and world-class inesite, beside copper workings 3,000 years old. The collector's guide to Daye.
Tonglushan: Where Chinese Mining Began
Discovered by archaeologists in 1973, the Tonglushan mine on Mount Verdigris preserves 3,000-year-old shafts, trenches and smelting furnaces — one of the oldest copper mines in the world, worked from the 11th century BC into the Han Dynasty. The ancients mined the deposit's rich oxidized zone; their modern successors operate an open pit next door that still yields native copper, chalcopyrite, azurite, malachite and calcite. Owning a Daye-district specimen means owning a continuation of the longest mining story on the planet.
Fengjiashan: China's Calcite Masterclass
The Fengjiashan mine (Daye County, Huangshi Prefecture) is a skarn-type copper-iron deposit whose cavities produce what many consider China's finest calcite. The variety is remarkable — sharp scalenohedra ("dogtooth"), thick rhombohedra, poker-chip stacks and twins — frequently water-clear, often perched on contrasting matrix. The celebrated 2008 pocket produced a unique intensely colored crystal (its hue attributed to trace manganese) that has become one of the icons of Chinese calcite.
Fengjiashan's supporting cast elevates it further:
Inesite. Rosy-pink sprays and bowties of this rare manganese silicate, on white matrix, from finds around 2000–2005 — among the finest inesite ever recovered anywhere.
Japan-law quartz. Elegant flattened V-twins of quartz, sometimes accompanying brassy pyrite crystals.
Hubeite. A modern scientific footnote: the species hubeite, a rare calcium-iron sorosilicate, was first described in 2002 from this very district and named for the province — one of several new minerals China has given to science.
Photo: Evilbish, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Shennongjia Amethyst
From the misty Shennongjia Forest District — better known internationally for its nature reserve and its legendary "wild man" — the Guanmenshan copper deposit produced large amethyst groups to 40 cm around 2008, an unexpected purple chapter for a province defined by carbonate mineralogy.
Collector's Notes
Hubei calcite competes on form, transparency and associations rather than flashy color, which keeps prices reasonable relative to quality — an excellent entry point for building a serious China collection. Inesite is the sleeper: rare worldwide, undervalued relative to its scarcity, and strongly identified with this single Chinese district. Check calcite terminations carefully (cleavage bruises are common) and favor pieces with documented pocket dates where available.
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Photo: Robert M. Lavinsky, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Recent Developments (as of 2026)
Fengjiashan has shifted to intermittent output. Recent material centers on "Mercedes-star" twinned calcite and calcite-on-amethyst combinations rather than the classic early-2000s inesite rosettes, which are now essentially unavailable and command strong premiums — though the mine still yields the signature silicate association sporadically, with fresh inesite-and-apophyllite-on-hubeite pieces appearing around 2023. Japan-law twin quartz from the mine continues to reach auction. The ancient Tonglushan workings are now catalogued as their own locality and still produce azurite and malachite from the oxide zone through 2024, though the celestine pockets were reportedly mined out around 2021.
Photo: Robert M. Lavinsky, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sources and further reading
Factual background for this article draws on Liu, G., Lavinsky, R.M., Meieran, E.S., Schmitt, H.H., Moore, T.P. & Wilson, W.E. (2013), Crystalline Treasures: The Mineral Heritage of China, a supplement to The Mineralogical Record vol. 44 no. 1, together with MyMineralBox locality notes and standard mineralogical references. Recent-developments facts are drawn from the dated sources linked in the panel above. All text is original to MyMineralBox.
Questions fréquentes
What is Hubei Province known for in minerals?
The Daye district — especially the Fengjiashan mine — produces China's finest calcite (sharp scalenohedra, twins, and colored crystals), rare pink inesite, Japan-law twin quartz, and the type-locality mineral hubeite.
Is the Tonglushan mine still producing minerals?
Yes. Beside the 3,000-year-old ancient workings, a modern open pit still yields native copper, azurite and malachite from the oxide zone; its celestine pockets were reportedly mined out around 2021.