Scapolite (fluorescent)

Item Description

Dominated by purplish, intergrown crystals of Scapolite up to about 3 cm long, this cabinet specimen is from the very old finds at the Bolton Lime Quarries in Massachusetts. The Scapolites are lustrous, and they have a faint, blue-white fluorescence. Between the Scapolites are metallic, silvery micrograins, probably Graphite and/or Talc, and on the back are several mm-size, cinnamon-brown grains of possibly a member of the Humite Group. Most quarrying at Bolton Lime was done between the mid-1700s and the mid-1800s, with many of the specimens associated with the contact zone found between the marbles and the granite/gneiss. Formerly in the collections of Joseph Leidy, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and Chris Stefano. Per Wikipedia: Joseph Mellick Leidy (September 9, 1823 – April 30, 1891) was an American paleontologist, parasitologist and anatomist, still famous in zoology today.