Calcite (Manganoan) with Pyrite - image 1

Calcite (Manganoan) with Pyrite

Unknown Owner

Help improve this recordNo owner is registered for this specimen yet. If it's yours or you know more about it, you can add the owner, provenance, publications and other details.

What a beautiful elongate plate of pink Calcite crystals from old finds at the Manaoshan Mines from famous finds circa 2010. This aesthetic cluster is composed of light pink discs of Calcite from 2 to 5.5 cm across with their outer edges highlighted with tiny iridescent Pyrite crystals. There are also some tiny Pyrites located just under the surface of the larger faces of the translucent Calcite crystals too. The Calcites are randomly oriented with all of their edges sticking up vertically from the piece in a striking array, with their highlighted Pyrite edges from a weird deposition of pyrite only on those edges and not in the crystal centers. This has remained a truly unique, immediately recognizable classic from those earlier years of mining here. Manaoshan Mountain (it means Agate Mountain) is actually a group of mines into the same deposit, honeycombing the mountain that is almost within sight of the Chenzhou Mineral Show location, it is so close to town. This came out of the place, but nobody was ever keeping track of which tunnel produced what. The fabulous Green Fluorites with Dolomite find was in the same mountain, although surely a different tunnel (I have been in several of them). The tunnels with manganoan calcite seem to give off a different style every decade or so, and you'd never guess they are from the same place! As a bonus, the manganese gives a stunning red fluorescence, by the way.