Heulandite with Babingtonite, Datolite and Quartz

Item Description

The famous Prospect Park Quarry in the Watchung Mountains of New Jersey was one of the most impressive (and under appreciated) zeolite producers in the US. Over its lifetime, this historic quarry has produced some wonderful specimens over 100+ years. This specimen features many sharp, pearly, very lustrous, gemmy, light beige colored groups of Heulandite up to 1.6 cm associated with light yellow-green crystals of Datolite along with rare blue-grey crystal groups of Babingtonite (partially altered to some kind of Pyroxene) sitting on Quartz on basalt matrix. Sadly, this great New Jersey locality is now extinct (like so many of the great Trap Rock localities in this area), and pieces like this one will be never be collected again. This piece was collected in the late 1990s. From the collection of Chester ("Chet") S. Lemanski Jr. of Browns Mills, New Jersey (https://www.mindat.org/user-461.html). Collection #20619L. Chet was born 1947 in started collecting minerals circa 1957. He worked briefly as a drill runner at the famous Sterling Mine, in Ogdensburg, New Jersey and from 1987 to 1990 he helped convert the mine into a public access mining museum. He has held the role of treasurer, vice president and president of the Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society (FOMS), and has been a board member and vice president of the Franklin Mineral Museum. The rare copper arsenate, Lemanskiite was named in his honor in 1999.