Red Quartz

Item Description

Quartz is almost certainly the most diverse mineral species on the planet. The wide number of styles, colors, habits, varieties and localities where it has been found, makes it nearly ubiquitous for mineral collectors. In 2017, we started seeing these beautiful red Quartz specimens coming out of Morocco, and they made a big splash for their excellent size, quality and that alluring color. When it comes to red colored Quartz, you will see a lot of different labels for the material on the market, and we've seen various dealers label them with a bunch of varietal names including Ferruginous Quartz, Red Quartz, "Hematoid" Quartz / Hematite Quartz, Eisenkiesel, and I'm sure there are more. The material is essentially Quartz that has been colored completely or nearly completely red by inclusions of iron oxide, most likely Hematite or possibly Goethite. The locality near Tinejdad (I'm told it's the Tarya Mine) has produced some superb examples of these beautiful Quartz specimens with robust crystals, larger size display pieces and that intense stark red color. The crystals on this specimen feature a strong brick-red to blood-red color, but some crystals on the lower/back/reverse side show the original Quartz crystals (before the introduction of the iron oxide), with grey and colorless hues. The main habit of the crystals is hexagonal prisms, but you can see they are slightly "studded" with a secondary overgrowth of tiny drusy Quartz crystals, like the "Cactus Quartz" specimens from South Africa. The piece is in good shape overall, but there are contacts along the periphery where it was detached from the surrounding part of the pocket. The largest crystal measures 5.1 cm long. If you're a Quartz collector and you don't have one of these in your collection, don't miss out. They are beautiful display specimens with a pleasing color, and pieces like this one were few and far between from what we were able to select. If you collect Moroccan minerals, you have to have one of these in your collection.