2
Quartz
White marble cavity from the famous Carrara quarry in the Apennines, containing exceptionally pure doubly terminated quartz crystals. Apennines are a mountain range extending along the Italian peninsula from north to south for about 1200 km, through fifteen of the twenty Italian regions. Their genesis began about 20 million years ago and is still slowly ongoing. During this genesis, almost pure carbonate sediments which precipitated from an older shallow hot sea were deeply compressed and recrystallized in a first stage to form calcareous rock of what would become much latter the famous Carrara white marble which has been exploited since Roman times. In a second stage, higher pressures and temperatures reaching 400 °C, deformed and reorganized the crystalline structure of this rock, forming a metamorphic rock with a different structure, namely marble, which “design” and aspect have made so famous. It was during this second phase that, along thin white and crystalline bands, cracks and cavities opened in the marble, hydrothermal solutions seeped in and deposited crystallized quartz and other mineralogical species inside. While cavities and crystals are unforgivable defects in the cutting of marble blocks, they are also precious geological testimonies of the amazing laws of nature. The discovery in 1998 of an exceptional cavity containing this sample has been filmed during its opening with a diamond chainsaw along the front wall of the cave. In order not to damage the crystals, the recovery required several days of careful work, which made it possible to isolate this beautiful sample. The sawing marks are clearly visible on the external faces of this sample.
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Cava Valbona, Valpulita, Alpi Apuane, Provincia di Carrara, Toscana, Italy
Added on11/10/2024
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