Kosnarite (named for Rich Kosnar) (ex Brian Kosnar Collection)

Item Description

Kosnarite is Potassium, Zirconium Phosphate and was named after Richard Kosnar in 1994. The type locality for this material is Mt. Mica, Maine, and the crystals at that find barely approached 1 mm in diameter. In 2002, Luiz Menezes made a discovery of what are the finest crystallized Kosnarite specimens in existence with crystals up to 4 mm (which is a quantum leap in size)! This is a specimen from that find featuring a sharp, lustrous, cream color, pseudo-cubic (trigonal) crystals on white Albite matrix. If you look closely (see micro photos that I took), you'll see a small truncated face on each "cube" of Kosnarite on this specimen, which is actually a pinacoid or a "c" face as these crystals are trigonal and not isometric as they might appear. Please note that the Kosnarite crystals are on the side of the specimen, and as far as we could tell, there are no crystals on the top of the Albite crystals.