Crocoite (classic material)

Item Description

Crocoite has been known since the 1700s, but there is no debate that the finest crystals of ever found are those from Tasmania, Australia. These phenomenal examples are world-famous for having the largest and highest quality crystals of the species with the finest color ever seen. This is a good representative example featuring diverging, sharp, lustrous, strong orange-red colored, prismatic crystals measuring up to 1.7 cm with a tiny bit of attached matrix. The crystals have a fiery internal vibrancy that really comes out when the piece is backlit. Very good condition, with a few contacts, but that's almost always the case for these specimens.
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.