Rhodochrosite

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The Mineralogical Museum, University of Delaware

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Rhodochrosite (cut and polished), 41.3 cm, from the Capillitas mine, Catamarca, Argentina. This specimen was found in December 1986 in a cave containing individual rhodochrosite stalactites up to 3 meters in length. There is little documentation of this occurrence, and only one known photograph taken, by Dr. J. A. Saadi, shown on the website giantcrystals.strahlen.org. The stalactites were removed in a short time and were cut into slabs and polished, exposing the vivid red-pink rhodochrosite and complex banding beneath the tan-colored outer layer. It is likely that all of the major large slabs that were sold during these years came from that single cave. Mining continues at Capillitas, where massive veins are composed primarily of rhodochrosite, but no other large cave of stalactites has been found.