Microlite Group

Item Description

Here we have a nice small cabinet sized piece featuring a RICH coverage of Microlite from a discovery in 1980s. The piece is loaded with hundreds if not thousands of tiny (it's called Microlite for a reason) translucent, rich golden-orange colored crystals which are coating nearly all sides of the piece. If you look along the edge of the specimen, you can see a stepped / layered formation with the matrix. Although the crystals are small, you can still see well-defined octahedral crystal faces. Upon close inspection I can see a few bladed crystals of Albite, and some attractive acicular white colored "sprays" of an unknown mineral (possibly Bertrandite?). A wonderful old time specimen from the famous Ipê mine in Brazil. Despite their size, the finest examples from this mine are some of the finest quality Microlite crystals out there. If nothing else, this is a nice micro specimen for anybody interested in a piece of one of the less common gem mineral oxide species out there. I have to say that this piece is labeled as Microlite Group because the species Microlite is no longer valid.