Diopside (chromium-bearing) (RARE Locality!)

Item Description

This is the only specimen of this material that we've seen. At first glance I thought maybe this was an old classic from Outokumpu, Finland, but it's actually from the Harquahala Mountains in southwestern Arizona! The piece comes with a label that says it was purchased from David Shannon, one of the great Arizona field collectors of his day. The label states that this is "Chrome Diopside", and even though we haven't had it tested to know for certain if it's actually chromium-bearing, I would be shocked if analysis did not show at least a little bit of chromium content, as some of the crystals show an amazingly intense green hue when backlit. The strange part is that I can't find another crumb of it anywhere online for comparison, and I highly doubt that this was the only specimen ever found. If anybody out there has a bit more insight about this material, please let us know. With that said, the piece hosts several sharp, lustrous, prismatic crystals which range in color from a very dark green (nearly black) to a lovely green hue, which as I mentioned GLOW with electric green color when backlit. Several of the crystals are contacted or straight up broken, but there are other which are well-terminated. A bit of translucent, silvery colored Calcite can be seen for a nice touch. It's a strange, unique and certainly intriguing locality specimen to be sure, and if you collect Arizona minerals, or you're simply interesting in unusual pieces from unlikely localities, do NOT pass this one up. We don't have another, and the label says it was acquired in 2000, so it's quite possibly no more will be found. From the collection of Colin Manlove.