Description

Detailed Description

Vugs of red quartz host nice yellow fluorites on this specimen. The focal point is the nice round upper vug with the perfect fluorite (0.8cm) and red quartz crystals perched right on the fluorite surfaces. The lower fluorite is larger (1.1 cm) and also a nice colour – it has a cleaved lower left corner, a clean cleave, not prominent because it faces down as I would stand the piece for display. (The lower right corner is naturally truncated, not damaged.) The colour contrast and total perfection of the upper fluorite make this a pretty cabinet specimen!

About These Fluorites

Although Moroccan yellow fluorite is often attributed to “Aouli”, an abandoned historical mining complex which is not producing specimens, contemporary specimens are in fact from an area near Sidi Ayed. Although it is road-accessible, it is relatively remote in a barren, windswept area which sees sandstorms in the dry weather and roads washed out in the rain. These fluorites nice for Sidi Ayed specimens, for a few reasons – they are isolated on quartz crystals, rather than massed together with missing or cleaved crystals (which is more typical), some of the quartz has some nice red colouring from hematite, and a few of the fluorite crystals show tiny irregular zones of greenish blue colour.

If you are curious about this area, there are a few photographs in Morocco: The Northern Sahara and the Atlas Mountains (Part 2), after the section on Mibladen.