FLUORAPATITE on QUARTZ

SPECIMEN DESCRIPTION

This is a rather fun Panasqueira mine specimen. It consists of a short but stocky terminated Quartz crystal with several smaller crystals developed around its base. The Quartz is glassy, but not completely transparent. The main crystal has been fractured at the base at broadly 90 degrees allowing it to stand unsupported for display. However, it is what is on this Quartz crystal that is the interest here. Seemingly sunken into the pyramidal termination are a cluster of five prismatic Fluorapatite crystals, reaching up to 2.1 cm in length. These crystals are classic Panasqueira mine: well-formed, slighty glassy, greyish coloured prismatic crystals, with some darker grey zones. They are quite long relative to their width compared with many Panasqueira mine Fluorapatites and there is minor chipping but this does not detract from the lovely display. Two sides of the main Quartz crystal are coated in a thin matt beige coloured layer of Muscovite and under magnification it can be seen that the Fluorapatite crystals have a thin coating of Muscovite mica between them and the Quartz. A really unusual display specimen. Ex Nick Hawes collection.