Stilbite

$20,000.00

$40.00 shipping
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Calcite is a mineral species that sometimes gets overlooked due to the perception that it is common. Well, strictly speaking it is, but perfect crystals are certainly not common and are quite desirable. Then, there are the twinned crystals: things of great rarity and equally great beauty and fascination. Sometimes twins diverge from each other along a common crystallographic plane, but sometimes the twins are embedded deep within each other as interpenetrant twins, and that is the case here, with this magnificent crystal-clear twin perched on top of another, cream-coloured Calcite crystal on zeolite-bearing matrix. This style of twin will be familiar to collectors of northern English Fluorite but certainly not those who collect Calcite, although these Calcite crystals are certainly almost pseudocubic such is the distortion of the rhombohedral form. It comes from the famous zeolite-producing Jalgaon District in Maharashtra state, India and indeed the base is made of sharp, pointed glassy crystals of Fluorapophyllite intergrown with pale salmon-pink Stilbite. Pristine and perfect, the Calcite twin reaches just over 4 cm tall by a similar width and is unusually clear compared with the usual translucent cream coloured crystals seen there. Although not documented, this was likely collected in the early 2000s. It comes with a custom-made Sunnywood acryllic display stand and makes for an exceptional crystallographic display.