Diopside (2021 find)

Item Description

This piece came from a new discovery in July 2021. This find produced some truly beautiful and impressive Diopside specimens at the Janduk Mine, near the famous locality Ladjuar Medam, Afghanistan, which is best known for producing world class specimens of Lazurite (Lapis), Sodalite, Richterite and Afghanite among other things. The Diopsides form in the same marble as the other minerals, which is often etched away to expose the crystals within. This piece is a showy example of these exciting and colorful specimens featuring several blocky to tabular, beautiful lime green colored, fairly sharp and well-formed crystals measuring up to 5.1 cm associated with dark brown hexagonal crystal groups of Phlogopite Mica on white marble matrix. The piece is in good shape overall, though there is some incomplete crystal growth that you can see where the marble has been etched away. They Diopside crystals aren't damaged per se, they just didn't have enough space to fully crystallized inside the marble. I've seen a few of these pieces labeled as "Lavrovite", which is a vanadium-bearing variety of Diopside, but we have not had these pieces analyzed to know whether or not they contain vanadium. I will say that there is probably some kind of chromophore in these Diopside crystals (possibly something like vanadium or chromium), because they are a brighter green than you'd typically find in the species, as a lot of Diopside from around the world is a much darker green typically. If you collect Pyroxene minerals, specimens from Afghanistan, or if you're a fan of species from marble deposits, this is a great chance to pick up one these attractive and worthwhile Diopsides from this recent discovery.