[Rockhounds] Puzzle

[Carolyn Reynard]

To the List: I have and interesting puzzle.

I collected the specimen at the Havey Quarry, Oxford Maine.

It is a crystal that appears to be common beryl as you can determine the hexagonal crystal shape.  The hardness is
7.5.  The color is a warm light tan.  The matrix is feldspar.

What doesn't quite convince me it is a  beryl is a texture that looks likes like perthite and runs the complete length of the crystal into part of the matrix and is at right angles to the C axis. The feldspar matrix fluoresces at bright light blue with red perthitic texture as does this crystal..

I am wondering if this specimen is a pseudomorph, with perthitic microcline after beryl.   Would the microcline replacement still retain the hardness of the beryl?

I believe this is the important question.  Certainly the crystal fluoresces like the microcline  but there is the problem of hardness being too great for a feldspar.

Nice specimen, just wish I could figure it out!

Carolyn Reynard



--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
---