Aragonite (''floater'' specimen - 2023 find)

Item Description

Aragonite is a fairly common calcium carbonate mineral, found in thousands of world localities. With that said, some of the most distinctive and frankly alluring examples of the common carbonate, Aragonite, are those from the type locality in Spain. Here we have a wonderful specimen of this classic material that comes to us from a brand new discovery in 2023. This piece was actually found at the type locality for the species. It should be noted that a large number of the Aragonite specimens from various world localities are white, grey or colorless, but the pieces from around the city of Cuenca in the mountains of east-central Spain can often show a rare PURPLE color. For reference, according to mindat.org, Aragonite was named, "for the type locality, the village of Molina de Aragón, Spain, and not the province of Aragón, a mistake made by several later writers". So the history of this species is directly tied Spanish localities. Chemically, Aragonite is calcium carbonate, like Calcite, but it forms at a lower temperature and the crystals are orthorhombic, not trigonal. This piece is a beautiful example of these historic and well-known specimens featuring intergrown sharp, lustrous, translucent pseudo-hexagonal (they're actually cyclic twinned groups) crystals of Aragonite showing a combination of smoky-golden hues on the edges and gorgeous saturated purple tones in the centers of the crystals. The piece is a complete "floater", crystallized all around with no point of attachment or any damage that I can see. The flowing, three-dimensional aesthetic quality of the piece combined with superb form and glistening luster of the crystals themselves makes this a very desirable and choice example of these wonderful specimens. There is no iron oxide staining or inclusions, it's clean and beautiful. We picked up a very small parcel of these specimens, and only have a few to offer in the auctions going forward, so don't miss out as we don't know when pieces of this quality and color will be found again.