Cavansite with Stilbite-Ca on Heulandite-Ca

Item Description

Cavansite has a distinctive color, and the fact that it really is found in one place in the world in any notable quantity makes it's a great combination of rarity and beauty in the mineral world. This rare calcium vanadium silicate mineral, (which is actually how it got its name = CA-lcium VAN-adium SI-licate) is best known from the Wagholi Quarries in India, although the type locality for Cavansite is in Oregon. It should be noted that rumors keep swirling as to whether Wagholi is completely flooded and unminable, or if the quarry is being filled in to make room for the ever growing housing market in Pune, but eventually one day there will be no more Cavansite on the market. This small cabinet piece hosts gorgeous radial groups of glowing intense blue Cavansite sitting atop bladed, white Stilbite-Ca on a layer of drusy beige colored Heulandite-Ca sitting on basalt matrix. The largest Cavansite aggregate measures 1.3 cm across. The piece sits nicely on its own without a base or clay, and the front / display side is damage-free, though there is a Cavansite group on the side that is contacted. Showy, good quality, and one day there will be no more of these, so don't miss out on them while they're available.
From the collection of Armon McPherson, a retired physicist, now living in New Mexico. Armon received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 1985, and worked at the laser laboratory at the University of Illinois at Circle Center. In the summer of 1997, Armon moved to the Argonne National Laboratory where he worked at the Advanced Photon Source, then the world’s largest synchrotron facility dedicated as an x-ray source. In 2001, he was asked to join a team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque to conduct laser research for DARPA. Finally, staying within Sandia, he transferred to the Z Facility, the world’s most powerful x-ray facility. He retired in the spring of 2017. Armon's introduction to mineral collecting came in the 1980s during graduate school when he attended his first mineral show. He took up the hobby of faceting gems, and focused his early collection on gem crystals, and later transitioned into collecting non-gem species. We are proud to offer specimens from his worldwide mineral collection here for you.