Gormanite / Souzalite (rare)

Item Description

The area around Rapid Creek is only accessible for a few months in the summer for collecting (it's under snow and ice the rest of the year), and is some of the most treacherous terrain in the world for collecting specimens. This locality is best known for its phosphates, including some of the finest, highly sought after, and best known specimens of Lazulite in the world. This specimen has no Lazulite, but is a lovely display piece featuring beautiful greenish-blue needles or "sprays" or Gormanite / Souzalite on matrix. A good quality specimen of this classic material. The piece was labeled as Gormanite / Souzalite, so I'm assuming that because these species form an isomorphic series, that possibly both species are present within the same crystals. The piece comes with a label from Upper Canada Minerals in Ontario by way of the David Burgess Collection. David was a prolific species collector from Newington, Connecticut, and the namesake for the extremely rare cobalt arsenate species Burgessite, which he discovered.