Hartz range.....something?

[gammyknee]

Looks interesting Lefty!
Is the change of colour in the stone or is it under different lighting, picking up a blue colour from somewhere?

[Lefty]

I think it might be different lighting/angles GK - I took some under incandescent and some under fluroescent. But the first thing I noticed when I took the first bit I cut off the dop was that it was so bright that it looked silver rather than colourless. This second stone seems to have a slightly "sleepy" look, but not too much. The first one also has it but to a lesser extent - that is, just noticable. Close examination through the 20x shows that both stones are full of these tiny needle, like formations, although they seem a bit less prominant in the first one. They might all contain the needles but they aren't really visible until the piece is polished.

It's roughly as heavy as I would expect quartz to be and seems at least as hard if not slightly more so.

A few pieces have large black needles through them though most don't.

One piece is a large, partial crystal. A chip off the side of a large crystal really. It looks like it might be hexagonal in it's complete form but there isn't enough of the piece to be certain.

A couple of pieces look to be very, very faintly pinkish.

The little needles look just like what I saw in a piece of faceted moragnite a while ago - is there the possibility that it is beryl?

[Wwoofa]

Hi,  I think it's Beryl (Aquamarine) and the inclusions are often called "rain" ... very narrow tubes formed as the crystal grows.   Very nice material 
Regards,  Paul

[Lefty]

Thanks Paul. I've always thought there was just something slightly different about the stuff even though the rough looks like very clear quartz. I haven't seen "rain" in quartz before myself.

[gammyknee]

A few pieces have large black needles through them though most don't.

More like thin blades - green metallic..





This is unlike the 'rain' found in beryl.
The RI is lower than beryl and indicating a Feldspar or Scapolite but this is definitely not Quartz.

[Lefty]

Interesting!


Is that the little flat bit shaped like Tassie?


Both bits I have faceted are full of a rain-like feature that is completely unlike those metallic green blades. The rain is much smaller, colourless, all pointing the same direction. Some bits are full of it while others have a lesser amount. It's difficult to see without using loupes and looking through a polished surface so I'm not certain if all pieces have it.


I saw some (non-gem quality unfortunately) topaz crystals embedded in crystalline white Quartz yesterday - perhaps there is more than one mineral species among the stuff I picked up in that little gully at Hartz range?

[gammyknee]

Its very possible that there is two different types of stone Lefty. The look of the piece you have cut has that 'sleepy' look to it but the RI rules out Beryl.

Yes, this photo taken under the microscope is the 'Tassie' piece - I was able to get a 'fuzzy' RI read off the cleavage plane. The cleavage, as you have suspected, indicates it is not quartz, I have ruled out Petalite as the RI is higher. Likewise I have ruled out Beryl as the RI read is lower.
This 'Tassie' piece is clear material with these green metallic blades included. Dare I say like the Rainbow Lattice.
Also these inclusions are not Tourmaline.

More to come yet.

[Lefty]

This gets more and more interesting as it goes along


I might send that faceted piece so as to determine if these are actually two different but similar looking materials.

[gammyknee]

Yes it does.

The facetted stone will give us more insight to what it may be and there is still more to be done on the other you have already sent.

[Lefty]

I'll do that when I get home late next week.


So many things with Gemmy potential but only a tiny handful of them are known to the general public. I've noticed that aluminum silicate seems to be the base for quite a lot of things - topaz, beryl, garnets, iolite and others.......

[gammyknee]

[gammyknee]

Looking past the surface scratches, it appears there is no direction to these 'needles'. Unlike beryl's 'rain'.They appear randomly within the crystal.

[Lefty]

I'll have to have a closer look when I get home.


Cheers

[jaseee]

have you ruled out black rutile quartz? I'm sure you get rutile around harts range.

[Lefty]

We think some of it is Quartz and some of it is a feldspar Jasee. They were found together in the same gully, the suspected feldspar looks identical at first glance but shows cleavage, shiny and flat as a billiard table.