World-wide, cordylite-(Ce) is a very rare mineral. The Demix-Varennes quarry is perhaps the easiest place to find it in good crystals, but it is not common even here.
This specimen features an excellent crystal from a find analyzed at Laurentian University (Sudbury) and IGEM (Moscow). The cordylite-(Ce) on this specimen actually has one of the typical habits found at this quarry. But it looks like catapleiite (or even mica), which led to a lot of consternation when first posted on Mindat. Cordylite-(Ce) dissolves with bubbles in HCl, so this simple test would have sufficed to show that the stuff isn’t catapleiite. But the silver lining from all the analysis is that it showed not only that the crystals are indeed cordylite-(Ce), but that there are also inclusions of very small, tabular, crystals of parisite-(Ce), a mineral that is otherwise exceedingly rare here. (Not that you can really see the parisite except in a general way as whitish surface zones.)
The first photo (FOV 3.1 x 2.4 mm) shows the main cordylite-(Ce) aggregate on the specimen. The aggregate spans 1.9 mm horizontally. You will need 30X to see the cordylite as in the photo. There is another, smaller, crystal (not shown).
As shown in the second photo (FOV 2.0 x 2.6 mm), the specimen also has a group of small, very dark red, sharply formed, crystals of manganoneptunite about 0.8 mm on edge. The crystals are difficult to photograph because they are very dark, yet very lustrous. To see the shapes clearly, you need reflections. But strong reflections cause “blowouts” and I wasn’t able to get “glancing” reflections useful enough to highlight faces without getting the “blowouts”. This is just an accessory mineral here so I didn’t want to make a project of it. But under a scope, the crystals are quite attractive – though rather small. You will need 20-30X.
In the full-view photo, the cordylite is visible, growing nearly edge-on to the matrix, at the top of the area of bladed white microcline crystals, just below the very pale green aegirine “fuzz ball” growing on natrolite at top left. The manganoneptunite is dark stuff just to the right of the natrolite.
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