Fluorite

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Fluorite usually forms cubic crystals, but is occasionally known to produce a few other weird and wonderful forms based around the cubic (isometric) crystal system. That said, this fascinating crystal from Horní Slavkov (Schlaggenwald) is just plain bizarre. Historically known as Schlaggenwald, this famous tin-mining town in the Karlovy Vary Region of north-east Czechia has long been known to produce Fluorite, but crystallized specimens are extremely unusual. Typically deep purple in colour, the Fluorite is usually seen as small cubic crystals but this fascinating small cabinet specimen presents a rounded aggregate where the sides are composed of thousands of tiny stepped cubic crystal faces that allign to form an apparent spheroidal aggregate, but which has slightly pointed ends. The 'points' are in the direction of the crystallographic axes and at some ends the smaller purple stepped crystals are overgrown by larger (up to 1 cm) cream coloured cubes. The back of the specimen is a concave fracture surface where it has been removed from matrix and shows internal colour zoning with white and purple banding. Ex Hans Engelbrecht Collection, no. 3355. This specimen has featured in Lapis magazine (2009, no. 7/8, on page 43) and Mineralienwelt (2009, no. 1, on page 25) and was from a famous historical find from the Schlaggenwald district, dated 1869, and was formerly owned by Chemnitz merchant Ernst Eduard Edlich (1832–1909).