EPIDOTE

SPECIMEN DESCRIPTION

Bourg d'Oisans in Isère, Rhône-Alpes, France was where the mineral Epidote was first discovered - its Type Locality. Described in 1801, by Rene Just Hauy, the species had been known from that region for quite some time previously. The crystals, and specimens are quite distinctive in form compared with the more famous flattened, or bladed, elongated crystals from Knappenwand in Austria, and the much later blocky crystals from Green Monster Mountain in Alaska. Specimens from Bourg d'Oisans usually display vein-sections of glassy, deep green prismatic Epidote crystals tightly bunched together and growing perpendicular to the vein wall/edge. This classic example from David Hardman's collection displays this on one side, but half of the vein is made up of irregularly orientated prismatic Epidote crystals. Details of when the specimen was collected are absent, but it shows all of the features of old-time specimens.