1.5" Purple Cube-Dodecahedron Fluorite on Sparkling Quartz - China

Xia Yang Mine is a mine in central China's Fujian province that produces rich, dark flourite specimens along with calcite and quartz. The flourite from this locality tends to be blocky in shape with large faces, and can come in a range of colors from vibrant blues to deeper purples and glassy green shades. The deep purple specimens are sometimes called "Tanzanite Fluorites" for the rich, deep blue-purple coloration and the way those colors shift depending on the lighting.

Fluorite is a halide mineral comprised of calcium and fluorine, CaF2. The word fluorite is from the Latin fluo-, which means "to flow". In 1852 fluorite gave its name to the phenomenon known as fluorescence, or the property of fluorite to glow a different color depending upon the bandwidth of the ultraviolet light it is exposed to. Fluorite occurs commonly in cubic, octahedral, and dodecahedral crystals in many different colors. These colors range from colorless and completely transparent to yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, or black. Purples and greens tend to be the most common colors seen, and colorless, pink, and black are the rarest.