Sylvite

Help improve this record

No 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.

This well-trimmed miniature features a superbly formed and pristine, gemmy transparent, 1.8 x 1.4 x 1.1 cm SHARP rectangular crystal of blue halite. The halite is high temperature and stable with unique characteristics compared to halite specimens of other locations. The matrix is clear crystalline sylvite with some soft rock matrix mixed in - but in this case, the halite is actually embedded in the sylvite - stable and solid! The quality is at the apex for this material; and no more will ever come out as the region deep underground is both inaccessible by geology (it collapsed) and by law (management and access). If you did not get when when these came out circa 2010, you missed out and now is the chance. This fine miniature can also trim to an elegant and even more balanced thumbnail specimen of high quality. Please note the soft matrix is stabilized to prevent crumbling (as they all should be). A great article on this material was published in MR: Philip, Simmons (2013) The Carlsbad Potash Basin, Carlsbad, New Mexico, in January-February 2013. The Mineralogical Record, 44 (1) 13-49.