[Rockhounds] Blue green apophyllite

[Lawrence Rush]

Thanks, Rock..... You are right, the hardness of the matrix is around 6-7, 
and it is insoluble in HCl. This material is concretionary in appearance, 
and is not erosional. It is possibly quartz. There are distinct perfect 
hemispheres of a softer,white material (Stilbite?) on a few of the 
Apophyllite crystals. As an additional note, there is a green, radiating 
mineral, which shows in the center of the stalactites/stalagmites. This is 
dark green, fibrous, and relatively soft.

I have asked the supplier what quarry these came from, but, as you know, it 
is not always easy to get specifics from the people who pass these specimens 
on.

Thanks again......Larry




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rock Currier" <rockcurrier at cs.com>
To: <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2007 3:16 AM
Subject: [Rockhounds] Blue green apophyllite


> Lary,
>
> It is very unlikely that the apophyllite crystals are growing on 
> natrolite. When I first went to India they called anything thin, white and 
> prismatic natrolite. None of the many, many specimens of white prismatic 
> minerals I encountered ever turned out to be natrolite. Also none of the 
> mamillary or stalactitic material was ever identified as natrolite either. 
> To the best of my knowledge there has never been a confirmed find of 
> natrolite in India except in one specimen and the natrolite was confirmed 
> optically to be located in the center of a small prismatic mesolite 
> crystal from the quarry the runners called Malad to the north of Bombay. 
> You might want to ask you supplier who did the analysis of the specimens 
> and then contact them to determine what tests they ran. Also the locality 
> for the apophyllite is not likely to be Jalgaon. Jalgaon is a sizeable 
> city and most of the specimens attributed to that city actually come from 
> quarries some miles to the west of there near a village called Paldi.
>
> Rock
>
>
>
> I recently got a dozen pieces of an unusual blue-green variety of
> Apophyllite. Although these are from Jalgoan, India, they do not look at 
> all
> like the usual blocky form of Apophyllite from there. These are different 
> in
> color, and are arranged in a parallel habit, with the prism being 
> elongated
> and frequently twinned. Apparently they never occur as single crystals.The
> matrix (Natrolite) is mamillary and stalagmatitic.
>
>
>
>
> -- 
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