Catapleiite on Aegirine

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There is no disputing that the world's best crystals of the extremely rare sodium zirconium silicate hydrate, Catapleiite come from Mont Saint-Hilaire (MSH) in Canada, but prior to the discoveries at MSH, and it becoming the world's most diverse mineral locality, the best Catapleiite crystals came from Narsaarsuk Plateau in Greenland. Known since the middle of the 20th century, the remote pegmatite at Narsaarsuk has a pretty diverse and unusual mineralogy itself and specimens are far rarer than those from MSH. This dramatic miniature specimen looks like it is mounted on a black wooden column, but this is actually a prismatic Aegirine crystal skewering into the back of a cluster of pale cream-green hexagonal Catapleiite crystals. These Catapleiite crystals reach up to 1.5 cm across and although some of the larger crystals are naturally incomplete where they attach to, or are included with, matrix many of the crystals show sharp straight edges showing their hexagonal outline really well. From the superb systematic collection assembled by the brothers Martin and Michael Günther (1951-2007 & 1956-2021). The specimen is mounted, using its Aegirine stem, to a clear acryllic base for display and handling, but can easily be removed using acetone.