Fluorite

Unknown Owner

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Navidad mine, or Christmas mine in English, at Mun. de Rodeo, Durango, Mexico is a Fluorspar mine that has been worked intermittently over a prolonged period of time. Most of the Fluorite is massive or masses of intergrown crystals, but in the early 21st century fine pink and purple octahedral crystals on plates of cream to white chalcedonic Quartz came to the market. Reports suggested that the pink colour was the result of sunlight beaching, with purple the unaltered colour. Whether that is true I don't know, but maybe this specimen from Arvid Pasto's famous comprehensive worldwide Fluorite collection has been kept preserved in the dark. The shape and quality of the octahedral crystals is extremely good and they are distributed in a manner which allows their excellent shape to be fully appreciated with a little of the nicely contrasting white Quartz matrix showing through to stand out. Many of the Fluorite crystals display rims of a much paler colour, possibly Quartz overgrowth, and show funky growth features on their matt surfaces, which makes this a fascinating piece to look at in detail. At cabinet size it is also a really displayable piece.