Sulfur (fine crystal) with Hydrocarbon inclusions

Item Description

A superb quality, super-sharp, "floater" Sulfur crystal with contrasting black hydrocarbon inclusions from an obscure mine in Sicily. This gemmy and lustrous, rich yellow, orthorhombic crystal has multiple crystal faces and dramatic skeletal features. Complete all-around and very nearly pristine. Super trivial edge wear is noted on a few of the sharp crystal edges. The contacting at the base of this outstanding floater has essentially no damage, per se. This is superior quality, old-time material from the famous mines at Agrigento. Single hydrocarbon-included sulfur crystals of this quality are very hard to find. Classic material and beautiful in person.  Thank you to Simone Citone for giving us the correct locality information for this piece.
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.