Go Dudley, Go! (page 2)
The mineral world has held its collective breath for several months now, wondering about the future supply of specimens from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Fortunately for us, the world's most intrepid mineral dealer, Dudley Blauwet of Mountain Minerals International, braved fighting in the streets, Pakistani Taliban, uncertain transportation and the usual suspects and made a spectacularly successful buying trip into the Northern Areas of Pakistan.
With skill, experience, and a lot of luck, Dudley made it back with some wonderful minerals from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and graciously invited me out for a visit. I'm pleased to offer here the first installment of great specimens from the first trip into these troubled places by any international dealer since all the troubles began. I hope you like them, and let's all hope for peace in southern Asia.
|
|
Clinozoisite on Adularia Twin
A very attractive, razor-sharp, translucent to transparent twinned crystal of adularia in a cluster with several smaller adularias, all sprinkled with gemmy, olive green clinozoisite crystals to 1 cm. This adularia is very similar to the classic Alpine specimens from Europe. Until the recent distinction between clinozoisite and epidote, the green crystals would have been labeled epidote. A spectacular Alpine specimen not from the Alps!
|
|
|
|
Aquamarine
with
Schorl
inclusions
An extremely aesthetic specimen featuring a large, 5x3cm aqua with a smaller aqua near its base, sitting up nicely on a small plate of very attractive, lustrous albite crystals. Included in the aqua, especially near the pinacoid, are some very fine needles of schorl. This is one of my favorite specimens from Dudley's trip. It also looks much better in person and is much more gemmy than the photos might lead you to believe.
|
|
|
|
Fluorite
with
Astrophyllite
inclusions
This is a nifty little fluorite crystal with a faint pink color on dark matrix. The color is somewhat reminiscient of Peruvian fluorites. Included in several areas of the crystal are bunches of long, fine astrophyllite needles. There is also a small, terminated hexagonal crystal (probably beryl) embedded along the front edge (visible in the first photo at lower right). This one doesn't look like much at first glance, but is very interesting on close inspection.
|
|
|
|
Fluorite
A 3cm translucent, mint green fluorite on an unusual matrix. The fluorite shows interesting patterns of either etching or secondary growth that appear to be "peeling" off the rest of the crystal. The matrix is coarse pegmatite granite, and the pocket area is lined with small, sparkling calcite crystals.
|
|
|
|
Tourmaline
with Quartz
Myanmar (formerly Burma) is one of Dudley's regular stops, and he did well there this time, too. Here are several of the new "mushroom" tourmalines from that locality. These all have excellent deep magenta color on the tops of the crystals, black "stems," and some have black banding visible inside the crystals. The bumpy, spongy-looking rounded tops of these crystals are really cool!
|
|
|
|
Tourmaline
102mt5 - 5x4x4 cm Momiek, N.E. of Mogok, Mandalay Division, Myanmar $300 |
|
larger image |
Tourmaline
102mt8 - 2.5x4x2.5 cm Momiek, N.E. of Mogok, Mandalay Division, Myanmar $300 |
|
|
Tourmaline
with Quartz
102mt6 - 3x3.5x2 cm Momiek, N.E. of Mogok, Mandalay Division, Myanmar $230 |
|
|
larger image |
Tourmaline
102mt7 - 2.5x2x2 cm Momiek, N.E. of Mogok, Mandalay Division, Myanmar $200 |
|
larger image |
Tourmaline
102mt4 - 2.5x2.5x2 cm Momiek, N.E. of Mogok, Mandalay Division, Myanmar $250 |
|
|
|
Tourmaline
102mt3 - 3x3x2.5 cm Momiek, N.E. of Mogok, Mandalay Division, Myanmar $275 |
|
|
|
Tourmaline
102mt2 - 2.5x2x1.5 cm Momiek, N.E. of Mogok, Mandalay Division, Myanmar $180 |
|
larger image
|
Spessartine
on Feldspar
A plate of nice feldspar crystals (not sure if it's albite or microcline) hosting some neat stuff. First are 3 good-size spessartine garnets, the largest being about 1.5 cm, with great, deep red color and very prominent "stairstep" patterns on the crystal faces. Also present are several quartz crystals with interesting fuzzy black spots inside, which were caused by natural irradiation. The largest quartz is broken and shows some growth of feldspar on the fracture surface. The garnets have much better color than the photos show.
|
|
|
|
Topaz
on Cleavelandite
A nice, super gemmy, very faint green topaz crystal nestled in superb, lustrous cleavelandite, all on the top of a large, partial quartz crystal.
|
|
|
|
Topaz
on Cleavelandite
Another textbook topaz crystal, this one with slightly more color, but more fully encased in cleavelandite. At the bottom front-right of this specimen there is also a tiny 1 cm bright green elbaite crystal.
|
|
|
|
Dravite
with
Feldspar
A fabulous multi-doubly-terminated tourmaline crystal that looks like a floating city from some bad science fiction poster! The deep brown color and many transparent areas indicate that this is probably dravite, but it hasn't been analyzed.
|
|
|
Tourmaline
with Quartz
A super toenail specimen! The main crystal has a "rind" and transparent cap of the deepest indicolite blue you could ask for, and a bright rubellite pink core, which is most visible at the bottom. Attached to the secondary tourmaline is a neat 2.5 cm doubly-terminated quartz crystal. Deciding which angle to display is the only problem with this red, white and blue beauty!
|
|
|
|
|
Tourmaline
with
Lepidolite
Another display angle challenge! One side of this specimen is a haystack of dozens of nice, gemmy elbaite tourmaline crystals. On the other side (I would call it the front) are lots of translucent pink lepidolite books, many with that "melted" look. One grouping of the lepidolite forms a little cave, in the middle of which is a really neat little spray of elbaites. A beautiful and unusual specimen.
|
|
|
Tourmaline
Attack of the Killer Toenail! Absolutely clear, gemmy and beautiful grass green and light pink tourmaline with a nice modified termination alongside a matrix of "melted" lepidolite. I think the pictures speak for themselves on this one. I think this is a superb "toenail" specimen!
|
|
|
|
|
Tourmaline
with Quartz
A neat little rubellite red-pink crystal with a dark blue cap. There was probably a complete blue "rind" at one time which was etched away, leaving the pink core. The blue termination looks almost detached from the rest of the crystal. There are a couple other heavily etched crystals of similar habit on the back of the specimen.
|
|
|
Tourmaline, Spodumene & Lepidolite
Great combination piece! The centerpiece is a couple of small, intense pink rubellite tourmalines with excellent lustre and nice termination faces. Next to those are a bunch of shapr purple lepidolite mica books with mirror-bright faces, and a couple more partial pink tourmalines. Surrounding all of this are very nice, big, bluish-white cleavelandite blades, some with nice areas of almost-transparency. Some of the blades have partial coatings of pink pocket material. Finally, holding all of this stuff together is a mass of light green spodumene, with some terminations protruding near the bottom of the specimen. As you can see in the second photo, the back of the specimen is mostly spodumene. Terribly interesting specimen that looks a lot like a Pala piece.
|
|
|
Alpine Minerals | Minerals | Pakistan 2002 | page 2