Tourmaline with tabular doubly-terminated Quartz

Item Description

A gorgeous association specimen featuring a pristine, water-clear, colorless, doubly terminated, unusually compressed / tabular Quartz crystal measuring 2.1 cm aesthetically attached near the base to an undamaged, gem quality, bottle-green Tourmaline crystal from the famed Pederneira Mine in Brazil. Fine quality, very showy, great aesthetics and simply superb material from this prestigious locale. You don't see pieces like this from Pederneira, and if you collect gem crystals, pegmatite minerals, specimens from Brazil or Tourmalines, this is a great one to add to your collection. Originally from the collection of Steve Smale and acquired from Pierre Laville in April, 1994.
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.