Strawberry Quartz

Old stock! Quartz with presumably included haematite. These came out in the 1990s to mid-2000s and are now hard to come by. The piece is a complete floater and shows some large translucent crystals.

The Shakyr-Tas Plateau is located approximately 100 km from the city of Shymkent, near the village of Aksukent which is the most famous occurrence of so-called "strawberry quartz" in the former USSR. This gem-quality quartz occurrence was mined using deep (up to 10 meters) pits. Due to the lack of forests, the pits were dug without support and collapsed very quickly. After 2000, quartz mining at the occurrence began to decline sharply, and around 2010 it ceased completely. The occurrence is considered largely exhausted.