Variscite

The two nearby roadstone quarries just north and off Mauldin Road on Mauldin Mountain in Arkansas, USA, host a small suite of phosphate minerals, one of which is the hydrated aluminium phosphate Variscite.  In this showy small cabinet specimen, intense peppermint green Variscite lines broad vugs in a light-grey microcrystalline cherty matrix, a rock known locally as ‘novaculite’.  The Variscite forms a continuous carpet of micro-drusy crystals as both flat and botryoidal mounds.  Under low magnification (say, x5) the Variscite sparkles across its surface from reflective micro-crystal faces, while at a normal viewing distance the lustre is matt.  A lovely specimen of Variscite from the Josef Clemente Collection of southern Germany.