Description

Detailed Description

The prominent zircon crystals at right of centre on this piece are deep, beautiful red, and they are lustrous. The main crystal is very sharp! In the third photo is a third crystal of moderate size, it is around to the left-hand side of this specimen – it is well-formed with nice colour too. The zircon crystals fluoresce yellow under short-wave ultraviolet light, as shown in the fourth photograph. In excellent condition, no damage. The dark red colour of these two sharp crystals at right-centre is striking.

Browse more Zircons from Astor Valley (click here)

About these Zircon Specimens

These zircons are from a relatively large new find of zircons from Astor Valley, in Pakistan. A locality that has sporadically produced moderate amounts of material in recent years, this recent find produced a large number of pieces. However, fine zircons are proportionally very few. There are two key reasons for this. First, the zircons are enclosed within solid rock with other hard constituent minerals, such that a good number of zircons were broken when they were collected. However, the second reason is the much more prevalent issue based on the material I’ve seen: the zircon crystals seem to have formed more or less contemporaneously with most of the other minerals in the deposit – feldspar, biotite mica, and pyroxene – and as a result, most of the zircon crystals are not fully developed. Instead, most zircon crystal growth was interrupted by the growth of these other minerals, and therefore most zircons are simply incomplete, or malformed. And yet, among well over 1000 pieces I went through from this find, there were a few excellent specimens.