Scheelite with Quartz (New Find)

Item Description

People think of Pakistani minerals most often as color gem crystals from pegmatites such as Tourmaline or Aquamarine, or cleft deposit species like Epidote or Brookite, but Scheelite is something that is not commonly seen. I can remember back in 2007 when we first started seeing these beautiful richly colored Scheelites appearing from Pari, which is actually a pegmatite locality, so you wouldn't necessarily expect to see Scheelite occurring there. This piece is a nice association specimen hosting a translucent, lustrous, pyramidal Scheelite crystal of a strong red-orange hue, measuring 2.2 cm at its longest dimension, with a few GEMMY colorless Quartz crystals. The piece is in good shape on the front/display side, but not complete on the back where it separated from the pocket wall. This piece is from a new find at Pari, not older material. Backlighting really allows the rich color to come through. Like most Scheelites, this piece fluoresces a strong blue-white hue under SW UV light. Keep in mind that Scheelite is typically a darker hue from most world localities (brown, dark purple, black, etc.), so to find such fiery colored crystals like this is rare, and from an unlikely locale in the high mountains of Pakistan.