Sphalerite (ex Willard Wulff Collection)

Item Description

This piece comes from the collection of Willard W. Wulff (1904-1998) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a prominent figure and collector of Colorado minerals. Wulff was one of the founding members of the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society in 1936. You can read Willard's bio on the Mineralogical Record website here ( http://www.minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=1528 ). The piece comes with one of Wulff's famous 3x5 cards that says it's simply from "Oklahoma", no mine or district given. I can't say if this is from Picher or somewhere more obscure. Small, sharp, brilliant, scintillating crystals of Sphalerite measuring up to about 2 mm are sitting on Quartz on matrix. Interestingly, the Sphalerites have a rich GREEN color when backlit, which is not common in my experience with Sphalerites from Oklahoma. If anybody has any more information about a specific locality that this piece might be from, please let us know.