Museum: Fluorite and
associated
minerals Section 2
Go
to Fluorite Museum Section 1
Go to Fluorite
Museum Section 3
Go to
Fluorite Museum Section 4:
Spectacular
fluorite stalactite!
Go to Calcite
Museum
Section 1
Go to Calcite
Museum
Section 2
 One BIG fin of fluorite, attachment was on the left, above, showing the internal yellow fluorite  Flip side in the sun  Sunlight really brings out the color of the purple fluorite! 
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Plate
of Yellow Fluorite with Purple Fluorite
and Calcite
About six specimens in one, so there are lots of pictures of this one! This plate is solid yellow flourite, with a partial overgrowth of purple fluorite creating a hoppering effect. The entire back and parts of the front are covered with small calcite crystals. This was a "fin" projecting off matrix, with the only attachment being on the left end. Specimen Size: 12.5 X 32 X ~4 cm Ex- Rocky Quinn collection. At the time I bought this I knew only that this was collected from southern Illinois, reportedly in the 1935-1945 time frame. Ross Lillie
(Northstar
Minerals) was able to identify the probable origin as the Minerva
#1
Mine, Bethel Level, Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. The mine was operated by
the
Minerva Oil Company. In this picture you
can see small, gemmy clear calcite
partly covering
the fluorite. One the far right a tan mineral coats the fluorite and in
some places coats the calcite. Kevin Conroy (KC
Minerals) and
Ross think the tan material is probably the rare carbonate benstonite
(barium
strontium calcium manganese magnesium carbonate!!), formula:
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Elmwood, Tennessee fluorite, although with the strong zoning (look at the last picture) and color it could be mistaken for Illinois. This is the prettiest, most colorful "Elmwood corner" I've ever seen. Glassy surface, clear inside the crystal. The window reveals a dark purple zoning, unusually pronounced for Elmwood. The crystal appears to be a "floater" with no obvious point of attachment, except at the back of the shining, silvery sphalerite. Chalcopyrites are embedded in the surface of the fluorite and on the sphalerite. Crystal form is unusual, too, in that it is rectangular, with one crystal face much longer than the those on the end facing the camera. The end is 5.5 X 4.2 cm, the length is 9 cm. Gemmy clear, no internal fractures. In the top two pictures you can see a strange "butterfly" inside. It's 3-4 cm inside the crystal. |
 Click on picture to enlarge |
Fluorite,
octohedron Yaoganxian mine, Chen Zhou, Hunan, China 5 cm on crystal
edges, very clear internally |
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Fluorite,
octohedron Yaoganxian mine, Chen Zhou, Hunan, China The big brother of the one above, this specimen is 8 cm on a side! I photographed it in my cabinet so you can see the back and hence see its shape better. The color, at least on my monitor, is quite accurate. It's a stunning deep green, very clear internally. |
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Colorless Fluorite
Naica, Mexico The terminations are about 1 cm across and are part of a 6 X 8 cm specimen. I thank Peter Seroka for the following commentary on this exquisite crystal specimen: "It is extremely
difficult to determine the exact crystal
structure
of the Naica fluorite you sent to me. It's obviously a complex (if not
complicated!) combination of a hexaedron with a hex`octaedron (thats
for
sure); however, as not few of the well known modified cubes from Naica
have rounded faces The modified hexoctahedrons themselves sit on the ends of rough-faced larger incomplete octohedrons. |
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Grape Fluorite
Octahedron on drusy quartz
The main crystal is 4 cm on a face. Naica, Mexico The faces of the octahedron are covered with perfect, gemmy, cube- octahedral, colorless fluorite. |
of
tiny flattened rhombohedrons 
