Spessartine

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A beautiful miniature displaying lustrous, deep root beer (brownish-red), intergrown crystals of Spessartine garnet measuring to 1.4 cm from the Broken Hill mining district in New South Wales, Australia. This nicely developed cluster of Spessartine crystals sit at the apex of a greyish-black matrix of lustrous, metallic massive Sphalerite. Garnet mineralisation is a characteristic of the Broken Hill ore body, although most garnets are not of specimen quality. The Broken Hill ore body is very ancient and is amongst the oldest ore bodies on Earth, at between 1,700 and 1,600 million years. This is a lovely example of Spessartine garnet to add to a collection of Broken Hill minerals.