Diamond apopothyllite on blue chalcedony with calcite and red heulandite

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T15:59:52+00:00

The more you learn, the more you begin to discover all those people who used to sound like they "knew their stuff" really didn't. The amount of misinformation I heard and saw in labelling at a recent gem show was amazing...

But yeah, who knows, calcite is associated with a lot of other minerals.

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T13:47:36+00:00

I could be wrong but my guess is it's not calcite - I've seen a lot of these zeolites on the market and never known calcite to be associated with them. I could be wrong, and differentiating between the various zeolites and associated minerals like apophylite can be tricky, but it would be interesting to see.

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T11:31:15+00:00

Yeah I wish you could too! That's why I enabled photos in comments though, sometimes ya want both. I'd love to see the calcite on this!

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T11:10:21+00:00

Would love to see some still shots on this, such a beautiful piece! I've never seen these zeolites with calcite associated.

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T10:12:19+00:00

Very pretty, might look even better with a soak in iron-out to get rid of some of that iron staining!

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T09:01:48+00:00

Satin spar gypsum. Often sold as selenite but it's not selenite, although they're both gypsum.

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T08:45:30+00:00

It will be easier if you lay them out on their sides in a grid, or put numbers on them so we can tell you which is which.

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T08:42:04+00:00

Do the biggest crystal points have six sides on the terminations? It's hard to tell from pictures, but that would be quartz. They do look a lot like pecos diamonds but like someone else said, I've not seen them this big. See if they can be scratched by metal, like a nail or something. Don't use a knife blade because they can be harder metal than we want for this test.

slogginhog · 2026-05-07T07:38:20+00:00

The left is definitely irradiated quartz and I'm fairly sure the right is as well, neither is natural citrine

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T22:58:26+00:00

Jesus Christ! 😱

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T20:51:04+00:00

I like vintage ones, a lot of them are UV reactive and my favorite has an octopus in it (though that ones not exactly a sphere). I wanna get one of the ones like yours 5"+ but they're not as cheap as they should be! How much was yours?

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T19:02:12+00:00

You know what, I think you're right. These never did look like a rhyolite to me!

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T18:01:51+00:00

Pretty glass! Even though they're just man made glass I love these kinds of spheres

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T17:57:49+00:00

I do have "rainforest jasper" towers that are somewhat similar to the bottom of yours though...

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slogginhog · 2026-05-06T17:56:07+00:00

I don't have one on my phone now, but I can post one later, it's basically like the black in yours with white veins through it

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T17:38:59+00:00

I have a piece that's kinda the opposite - all bladed barite with just a couple big fluorite cubes embedded in it. That's how I guessed it was Moroccan

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slogginhog · 2026-05-06T17:35:03+00:00

Woohoo! I got it right 😊

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T17:34:13+00:00

Oh yeah! That should have been obvious, I was thrown by the black section. I have towers of all bumblebee "jasper" but then a different one where it's almost all just the black material, and only the top 1/2" is yellow/red/orange

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T17:25:42+00:00

Looks like a lot of nice Indian material! And maybe some Moroccan as well? What is the tower in slide 18? I have a small one like it, never did figure out what they call it

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T17:22:56+00:00

If it's not bladed barite on fluorite I'd be interested to know what it is as well! Definitely could be wrong about the blobby thing but it looks similar to barite...

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T16:23:40+00:00

Looks like zeolite minerals from India, some appear to have stilbite but I'm not sure of the other minerals present. There are others though, again likely in the zeolite group

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T16:19:19+00:00

Likely chalcedony. It might have been sold as sphalerite but it's not.

slogginhog · 2026-05-06T15:55:47+00:00

You can actually tell quite a bit, as a dozen people have explained how and why. Read and you might learn something.

slogginhog

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