PROSOPITE with Creedite Azurite on Quartz

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Prosopite is a rather rare but dull looking calcium aluminium fluoride mineral right? Think again. This recent material from Zoila mine at Sierra Rica in Chihuahua, Mexico has turned that assumption on its head. I have to confess to having assumed that this beautiful sky-blue mineral was Chrysocolla, but analysis has shown otherwise. Not only is this Prosopite colourful and texturally fun - as globular aggregates - but combined with the associated dark blue Azurite on a bed of creamy-white terminated Quartz crystals it looks wonderful. Added to this is a slightly rarer association with spiky crusts of finely crystallized colourless Creedite - another rare calcium aluminium fluoride, this time with the addition of sulphate into its chemistry. The dilemma here is which way to display it, as the best globular Prosopite is on the main crystallized surface of Quartz, but it continues around the specimen to where the Creedite is better developed. Either way, this is a world-class Prosopite: rare and beautiful.