Henritermierite (a rare Garnet species) - image 1

Henritermierite (a rare Garnet species) - image 2

Henritermierite (a rare Garnet species)

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.

Henritermierite is a tetragonal structural member of the isometric Garnet Group and one of the rarest of the garnet species, known also for unusual crystal habit that looks more like a zircon than a garnet. This species occurs at basically three localities worldwide: mines of the Kalahari Manganese Field, a locality on Sweden and one in Morocco. This specimen consists of dozens of dark brown-orange Henritermierite crystals, some to nearly 1 cm, and well-formed with sharp edges. Most crystals are opaque, however, some are translucent along their edges and the smaller ones along the edges are more strongly colored and more translucent. The entire display surface is covered with crystals and the Manganite matrix is laced with thin, orange-brown veinlets. This is one of the best pieces we've seen of this material and should date to classic finds of the early 1980s and again in the mid 1990s. We have only seen these turn up in the major Kalahari focus collections of the last few decades. This is rich, large, showy, and has good provenance from one of those important collections assembled "in the glory days" of the Kalahari as things came out.