Description

This specimen is comprised of sharp, lustrous, colourless, transparent fluorite crystals. The crystals are very complex, exhibiting five forms. They feature three prominent forms: dodecahedron, cube and octahedron and, better seen with magnification, one can see small faces corresponding with trapezohedron and tetrahexahedron in places.

Like some others from this find, these crystals are a second generation over an earlier one, and one can see the first generation crystals underneath. However, this one is a bit different – while some from this find have an opaque microcrystalline layer that makes the underlying generation look almost like an opaque crystallized matix, some of these have it, and others have almost none of that layer present. For the latter ones, the underlying phantoms are ghostly, and almost transparent. As a result, this is a fun specimen to examine closely under the lights, to see all that is reallly going on inside. Quartz crystals add to the aesthetics of this piece.

This piece is hard to photograph. The lustre is glassy, except for the octahedral faces, which give a nice offset. The crystals are transparent, even though the photos don’t convey that so well. In the photos, the third photo (black background) shows an excellent phantom – the cube with the dodecahedral bevels near the centre of the photo is a phantom, inside the larger transparent crystal. In the last photo, to the left of centre, a group of the underlying phantom-generation crystals is visible, exposed and not overgrown by transparent fluorite.

In excellent condition. Some incomplete crystals at the lower and left peripheries (where this was attached to the surrounding host rock) and tiny chips can be found if sought out.

A super fluorite specimen – five crystal forms, together with phantoms that exhibit two forms – pretty amazing.