Gahnite

GahniteA rarely seen matrix Gahnite (a zinc bearing member of the Spinel Group) from Stratford in Alleghany County which was collected circa 1950s 1960s and comes from the collection of noted Italian author and mineral collector, Francesco Bedogn (#150). I've only seen one other specimen of this material, and this particular piece is bigger, with a better crystal on it. It features a sharp, well formed, very lustrous, slightly gemmy translucent deep blue

these specimens showed up in Tucson (2018) and are some of the most colorful and certainly aesthetic Halites you'll see from any locality

without question

These are very well-formed crystals and are only very slightly skeletal or hoppered

antimony sulfosalt Franckeite consisting of somewhat "sword"-shaped crystals oriented into spherical aggregates which are sitting on matrix

sharp "sword"-shaped prisms intermixed with contrasting red argillaceous sandstone

bitumens and covellite

textbook crystals of Topaz measuring up to 1

I didn’t label this piece as being one of the “Blood Vessel Opals” as it’s mostly colorless and doesn’t really have much for inclusions like the majority of the pieces in this update

The piece is wonderfully balanced as the Pyrargyrite and Miargyrite crystals are scattered among colorless translucent Calcites on bronzy colored Arsenopyrite on host rock matrix

which gives way into a thin pale blue-green zone

I'm always impressed when one finds a piece this size with such good clarity and so many insects preserved within

This is the kind of quality you want out of a Kelly Smithsonite