Spodumene var: Kunzite (GEM crystal)

Item Description

A wonderful GEM Kunzite crystal from Afghanistan featuring a fairly sharp, well-formed, prismatic, very soft pinkish colored "sword"-shaped crystal, free of matrix. The lower portion of the crystal is etched, not broken, and even though I can't find any real damage, I won't go so far as to say it's a complete "floater". There are also a few deeper etched areas of the upper portion of the crystal, which give it character and a unique appearance. The color is strongest when the piece is viewed down the "c" axis, like virtually all Spodumene crystals, as the pleochroism is strongest that direction. A really attractive piece of this classic material. There are really only three places in the world that produce fine quality gem crystals of Kunzite: San Diego County, California; Minas Gerais, Brazil and various localities in Afghanistan. Most of the San Diego County locales are not producing anything, and Brazil rarely produces SHARP, EUHEDRAL crystals like this piece, so even though they might be common in the public consciousness, they are not very common around the world. The piece weighs in at 57.3 grams.
From the collection of Armon McPherson, a retired physicist, now living in New Mexico.  Armon received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 1985, and worked at the laser laboratory at the University of Illinois at Circle Center.  In the summer of 1997, Armon moved to the Argonne National Laboratory where he worked at the Advanced Photon Source, then the world’s largest synchrotron facility dedicated as an x-ray source. In 2001, he was asked to join a team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque to conduct laser research for DARPA.  Finally, staying within Sandia, he transferred to the Z Facility, the world’s most powerful x-ray facility.  He retired in the spring of 2017.  Armon's introduction to mineral collecting came in the 1980s during graduate school when he attended his first mineral show.  He took up the hobby of faceting gems, and focused his early collection on gem crystals, and later transitioned into collecting non-gem species.  We are proud to offer specimens from his worldwide mineral collection here for you.