Dolomite with Muscovite and Fluorapatite

Item Description

A showy miniature sized display specimen from the famed Crabtree Quarry in North Carolina featuring many rather lustrous, slightly curved, soft golden colored rhombic crystals of Dolomite measuring up to about 6 mm, associated with little sharp, very well-formed, deep greenish-black hexagonal groups of Muscovite on matrix. The first species listed on the label is Fluorapatite, and the ONLY crystal I could find is a TINY (less than 1 mm), colorless crystal, and no others, even after several minutes looking closely under the microscope. The label also mentions the presence of Rutile on the piece, and I found a few tiny striated dark brown crystals that I'm assuming are Rutile. The main focus of the specimen is certainly the Dolomite crystals, which are fine quality for the locality. A lovely display quality specimen of these now lesser seen pieces from this well-known locality.
From the collection of Norman Kennedy ("Kenny") Gay (1953-2023), a geologist, geoscience educator and mineral collector from North Carolina. (#M34 E.13). Kenny worked for North Carolina Geological Survey starting 1995, and he was a member of the adjunct faculty at Wesleyan College, and a professor of geology since 2001. He assembled a large collection of worldwide minerals specimens, though he focused mainly on minerals of North Carolina. Kenny did substantial work documenting all of the significant mineral occurrences and mining/mineral collecting in North Carolina. He might be best associated with the Redmond Mine, where the rare extremely rare lead sulfate Kennygayite was discovered and named in his honor in 2022. Kenny was the first person to collect specimens at this locality, which lead Jason Smith to take an interest in this assemblage, and later name a mineral in Kenny's honor.