Spessartine

Unknown Owner

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A fine example of a garnet from a MAJOR NEW FIND! The full locality information for this deposit is near the town of Loliondo, close to Serengeti National Park and 7 km from the Kenyan border, W-NW of the north end of Lake Natron. It is closed to heavy traffic and on Maasai tribal lands. Some of these are extremely large, but they typically get less transparent as the size gets larger. These had quietly been emerging from a small prospect in remote Tanzania and hoarded for sale at the Tucson show. The crystals light up a pretty orangey-red color, similar to a Chinese scheelite, under good light. This crystal weighs 19.5 grams, and has an odd elongated, diamond-like shape due to being a compound crystal.