Augite (Pyroxene) with Calcite

This specimen of black Augite with salmon-pink Calcite is from the historic collection of Archduke Stephan of Austria and originates from Arendal in Aust-Agder, Norway.  Archduke Stephan Franz Victor von Habsburg-Lothringen, Stephan to his friends, was famous throughout Europe for his magnificent mineral collection.  The Arendal district is rich in magnetite skarn deposits and this Pyroxene Group mineral (Augite) occurs widely throughout.  A skarn is a zone of highly metamorphosed Ca-Mg-Fe-Mn silicate-rich rock and was originally an old Swedish miner’s term meaning garbage.  Part, thick striated crystals of coal-black Augite are bound in a blocky crystalline mass if pale salmon-pink Calcite.  Unfortunately, there is no Archduke Stephan label to accompany this specimen, but the Archduke’s catalogue label (300/63) is glued to the specimen’s base along with a Carl Rumpff label, the German industrialist who bought the collection.