Paravauxite

a 3.5 cm crystal form this outstanding locality; this size is quite exceptional for this mineral

some piece reverse side showing association with evansite

Animas-Chocaya district, Potasi Dept, Bolivia

shiny dark-brown orieted crystals; associated with galena; a great cabinet specimen 8 x 8 cm

Pingwu, Sichuan, China

Scheelite

A crystal remarkable for its gemminess, color and size, on matrix. The left and right parts are not damaged but they may look that way on the monitor. Crystal is 6.5 cm top to bottom and matrix is 8 cm

crystal shows excellent relief above the matrix: it is not "mostly embedded"

Pingwu, Sichuan, China.

Scheelite with Fluorite on Muscovite,

An orange gemmy lustrous and undamaged crystal of Scheelite 3.5 cm next to a transparent fluorite crystal...with smaller scheelites and fluorites , all on matrix (whole 9 x 8 cm)

Hunan Province, China

Helvite

A number of tetrahedral crystals on quartz. Helvite is a rare beryllium mineral. Helvites here are to 2 cm, whole is 9 cm base and 7 cm tall

Argentina

Hematite

pseudo after magnetite, . Outstanding piece 114 mm long

Hematites of this kind are really single crystals although they may at first appear to be numerous aligned crystals. Growth took place in directions along x, y and z axes, since it grew as magnetite. This 3-D nature is hard to show in a flat screen. The streak is red. About 5% of them retain magnetism indicating almost complete pseudomorphism. When magnetic, part of a crystal may be magnetic and another part not.

the apparently ragged parts of the bottom section as seen above are actually very crystalline and hoppered

Note on Hematite pseudos from Argentina: These are real pseudomorphs: they started off as magnetite as their external crystalline structure shows ... being deposited it is believed, from the vapor phase in a volcano (maybe as the volatile ferric chloride...recall that volcanoes often have HCl gas in their vapors). The iron-containing vapors then got hydrolysed in cavities and deposited magnetite. Some specimens show the octahedra of magnetite, some the 3D growth and some the hopperred structure which consists of the partial faces of magnetite with others overtaking them as a result of the fast growth from vapor. They eventually oxidised to hematite: the iron going from a combination of Fe2+ and Fe3+ in magnetite to all of it becoming Fe3+in Hematite. About 5% of them are still magnetic. Thousands came out in 2001 and 2002, mostly far smaller and not so well formed.

We were given the greatly appreciated privelege of selecting what we wanted as a reward of helping with logistics of their preparation and marketing. They occur in pumice which had to be removed by careful work with HF (in which nobody apparently was injured indicating more skill than luck). We have other less expensive ones all hand-selected, on the relevant pages.