Scolecite - important locality specimen

Item Description

A rare and beautiful Scolecite piece of really impactful size and importance, but from an obscure locality in the Rio Grande do Sul State of Brazil. This large display piece shows off a long, columnar spray with some smaller sprays. A striking, tightly divergent spray of very glassy, lustrous, translucent prisms of Scolecite to 14.7 cm long and 3.3 cm wide form the centerpiece of this a very sculptural three-dimensional specimen. There are three other sidecar sprays of Scolecite that grow into the main cluster with the divergent points protruding. Tiny, 1 to 2 mm Fluorapophyllite crystals are sprinkled on the piece that make it glisten. A few patches of light reddish Hematite staining are present on the piece which is characteristic on some pieces from this occurrence. A former Alvaro Lucio collection piece probably acquired in the mid-1960s while mining a tunnel in basalt for a rail line for the Das Antas Tunnel in the Rio Grande do Sul State of Brazil. Very good and very rare for the locality and rumored to have come out long ago, prior to the 1980s. At one time, perhaps among the largest examples of its species (before Indian material became common).