Description

Several radial clusters of stellerite crystals make up this beautiful piece. It is nice delicate pink-orange colour, and the crystals are sharp and lustrous. In very good condition, a couple of areas of incomplete crystals on the larger fans and along the one edge. It displays naturally as in the first photo, and supported to stand as oriented in the second photo it also looks great.

About stellerite and stilbite, it is impossible to know one from the other without significant analysis, and we have none to accompany this piece, so it could be either and I’ve labeled it as it was originally labeled. While some people say that the crystal appearance is enough (and this specimen does exhibit a typical stellerite habit) the monoclinic stilbite and orhorhombic stellerite can appear visually indistinguishable from one another, particularly in crystal aggregates and clusters. The two minerals are chemically almost identical in any event and regardless, this is a very pretty specimen!

About John S. White (click here)