Calcite from Wenshan Mine, Wenshan City, Wenshan, Yunnan, China

The Dragon of Yunnan Province

Rising dramatically from the body is the specimen's crowning feature: a tall, gemmy calcite scalenohedron with a warm honey core that pales to a glassy, transparent "eye" just below its razor-sharp termination. The crystal's poised upward thrust evokes an open, roaring jaw and conjures a stylized Chinese dragon in mid-coil, frozen as it rises. An undulating, serpentine body of white aragonite sweeps horizontally across the frame in a graceful S-curve, forming the dragon's curling torso and tail.

Featured in Mineral Collections in Arizona–I, May–June 2013 supplement to The Mineralogical Record, page 224.

Featured in China II by Berthold Ottens, page 367.

On special exhibit at University of Arizona Mineral Museum Tucson, January-December 2014 as part of The Best of the Best, Prize Minerals from the Vaults of Arizona’s Collectors.