7.2" Blue-Green Cuboctahedral Fluorite on Smoky Quartz - China

This is a beautiful, 7.2" wide cluster of blue-green cuboctahedral fluorite crystals that formed on a bed of smoky quartz crystals. The smoky quartz crystals can be found on both sides of this specimen. This gorgeous mineral association was collected from Yongchun County, China.

It comes with an acrylic display stand.

About Fluorite

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.

About Quartz

Quartz is the name given to silicon dioxide (SiO2) and is the second most abundant mineral in the Earth's crust. Quartz crystals generally grow in silica-rich environments--usually igneous rocks or hydrothermal environments like geothermal waters--at temperatures between 100°C and 450°C, and usually under very high pressure. In either case, crystals will precipitate as temperatures cool, just as ice gradually forms when water freezes. Quartz veins are formed when open fissures are filled with hot water during the closing stages of mountain formation: these veins can be hundreds of millions of years old.

Smoky quartz is a grey-brown to black variety of quartz. This common name is derived from the appearance of smoke within the quartz crystal. Depending on the location and the chemicals present during formation, smoky quartz can appear opaque black, but it is typically translucent to some extent. It is believed that the quartz gains this color from a combination of natural irradiation and aluminum impurities.
SOLD
DETAILS
SPECIES
Fluorite & Quartz var. Smoky
LOCATION
Yongchun County, Quanzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, China
SIZE
7.2 x 4.7"
CATEGORY
SUB CATEGORY
ITEM
#160700