[Rockhounds] mystery mineral

[Dennis Buffenmyer]

Pmodreski at aol.com wrote:
> I've posted a photo of my "rectangular quartz crystal" to the Ning -  
> Rockhounds at Drizzle website.  You can see the squarish flat termination  on the 
> left, the flat "prism" faces, the many dings and chips (showing  conchoidal 
> fracture), and on the lower left is the smaller triangular face which  resembles 
> what would be a (111) face in an orthorhombic crystal.
>  
>   
OK, I'll suffer the flames and arrows, but it sure looks like plain old 
quartz to me. For me that is about the quality of specimen I would hope 
to find anymore.
The text book perfect crystals are for the museum curators and those 
with well lined wallets.
The picture shows what appears to be a worn crystal that was subjected 
to much abrasion being circulated in gravel or associated broken matrix.
The crystal faces appear to be odd angled interpentration twins that do 
not subject themselves to any particular quartz law. i.e. faden, japan 
law, pseudo hexagonal, or any other easily described habit.
Again, I said the picture looks like.....