Uvarovite (rare locality specimen)

Item Description

A rarely seen specimen of Uvarovite Garnet labeled as coming from the "Uvarovite Mine" in the Northwest Calico Mountains of San Bernardino County. This is most likely a reference to the Unnamed Chromium Occurrence mentioned in the 1996 book, Minerals of California by Murdoch and Webb. This small cabinet-sized piece hosts intense chrome-green colored partial dodecahedral crystals (almost like phenocrysts) which are frozen into the matrix, but exposed where the piece was separated from the pocket wall / surrounding host rock. The largest Uvarovite measures about 8 mm across. PLEASE NOTE: There are a few spots where the matrix has been glued together / reinforced, so the piece was obviously a bit unstable and required some stabilization to keep it from falling aparat. You can see the glue lines when the piece is viewed from the reverse side. Not necessarily a display specimen in terms of fine crystallization, but the rare locality, and the rich color make it desirable for any Garnet collector or a fan of minerals from southern California.
From the collection of Robert (Bob) Reynolds who passed in August of 2020. Bob was a well-known fossil and mineral expert and former Curator of Earth Sciences at the San Bernardino County Museum in California. The rare phyllomanganate-chromate species Reynoldsite was named in his honor in 2011.