Beryl / Aquamarine (rare locality specimen)

Item Description

A RARELY seen specimen of Beryl / Aquamarine from a the lesser known, but locally famous Hogg Mine in Georgia! A few years ago I was told that the mine is open for individuals to dig for a fee, but I'm not sure if the current owners are making the locality available to the public. This particular crystal is a decent reference piece for the material. In areas the color is a soft blue, which grades into a powder blue, but there are plenty of white sections as well. The crystal is not terminated as far as I can tell, though it seems to have a crude contact termination where it grew up against the pocket wall. It does have good hexagonal form as you can see from the cross section photo. A cool reference piece for any fan of Beryls, pegmatite minerals, or minerals of Georgia. According to Dennis Radcliffe and Arthur Bailey, the Hogg Mine (older literature calls it the Oxford Mine) "lies in the southwestern part of the Georgia Piedmont close to the Alabama State Line. The pegmatite is a typical lensoidal graphic granite pegmatite separated from a rose Quartz core by a narrow replacement zone characterized by A-type muscovite and beryl. Crystals of beryl weighing several hundreds of pounds are reported to have been collected from the property." It has been reported that chemically, the Beryls from this area are varied, containing many elements that are not essential for Beryl to form. Secondly, the Aquamarines in particular from this mine can feature fractures that are filled with a second generation of micro (sometimes gem quality) Aquamarine, which is exceedingly rare for Beryl.