Riebeckite (beautiful formations!)

Item Description

Most of the Riebeckite you'll find from South Africa will typically be a golden hue (Tiger's Eye), and is often polished for lapidary purposes. It's quite rare in my experience to find attractive display specimens of this material, and this piece is without question the most interesting, beautiful and unique example I've seen from the Prieska locality. A few "hut"-shaped or "mountain"-esque groups of dark grey-blue colored Riebeckite measuring up to 2.3 cm are sitting on a thin slab of matrix. Riebeckite is an Amphibole species, often quite fibrous in its form, but these front side of the groups on this piece are notably smooth. I looked closely and they are NOT polished, they just have a gentle surface smoothness unlike anything I've seen in the species. The backs of the groups are in fact fibrous, with thin acicular blue-grey "strands" starting to peel away from the larger aggregates. If you collect Amphiboles, minerals of South Africa, or you're just a big fan of odd / unique looking mineral specimens, don't pass this up this wonderful specimen for your collection.