Microcline var: Amazonite (good sized crystal)

Item Description

A classic, robust full-sized cabinet specimen from this well-known specimen-producing part of Colorado featuring a prominent, sharp, well-formed blocky, bright blue-green colored crystal of Amazonite measuring 9.1 cm, associated with additional smaller Amazonites, on matrix. There are some obvious contacts, the piece is not pristine, but it still features one of the larger Amazonite crystals we've seen from the area. This is presumably older material, probably from the 1980s era of digging. The piece displays well, and if you've been looking for a big showy specimen of this classic material for a good price, don't miss out on this one.
From the collection of Armon McPherson, a retired physicist, now living in New Mexico. Armon received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 1985, and worked at the laser laboratory at the University of Illinois at Circle Center. In the summer of 1997, Armon moved to the Argonne National Laboratory where he worked at the Advanced Photon Source, then the world’s largest synchrotron facility dedicated as an x-ray source. In 2001, he was asked to join a team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque to conduct laser research for DARPA. Finally, staying within Sandia, he transferred to the Z Facility, the world’s most powerful x-ray facility. He retired in the spring of 2017. Armon's introduction to mineral collecting came in the 1980s during graduate school when he attended his first mineral show. He took up the hobby of faceting gems, and focused his early collection on gem crystals, and later transitioned into collecting non-gem species. We are proud to offer specimens from his worldwide mineral collection here for you.