Andradite-Grossular Garnet Series (fine quality) (rare ''cast''?)

Item Description

These specimens are typically labeled as the Andradite-Grossular Series, as their chemistry will vary from calcium to calcium/iron content, sometimes within the same crystal. The pieces from the Koukouri Diggings are rare, and they have a distinctive color and appearance that separates them from others found in the Bafoulabé Cercle. This nearly full-sized miniature specimen is excellent and good sized example of these now well-known and fine quality Garnets from Mali featuring a predominant, sharp, lustrous, beautiful mahogany colored dodecahedral crystal with a secondary smaller Garnets growing on one end. The piece is largely complete all the way around, but there are some minor points of attachment that keep it from being a true "floater". The most interesting aspect of the piece is that there are some indentations of a striated prismatic mineral on the back of the specimen, and it almost looks like the Garnets have formed a "cast" after a preexisting crystal of something like Anhydrite(?). This locality isn't too far from the Prehnite diggings where they have been seen form "casts" after Anhydrite, so I don't suppose it's completely out of the realm of possibility that there were some Anhydrite crystals in with these Garnets, which were later dissolved away. From the worldwide mineral collection of geologist, Demetrius Pohl.