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Celestine

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MGR943960

Celestine

New Discovery

Description Tabs

Description
Locality: 
Darah-i-Laman, Qala e Naw District, Badghis Province, Afghanistan
Class: 
Crystals on Matrix
Size Range: 
Small miniature (3-4.5 cm)
Size: 
3.7 × 2.1 × 1.5 cm
Description

I am happy to announce that I was able to acquire the first recorded discovery of Celestine ever made in Afghanistan. And even for this whole region of the world it is a unique discovery - there are no Celestines in Afghanistan, neither in Pakistan or India - and all these countries are really rich of minerals. The next geographic localities are in Lybia or Turkey. But let´s have a look at the international market and on international localities. The most well known Celestines are from Madagascar - of course they become large and very gemmy, but concerning color they are not even half as good as this new production from Afghanistan. What else do we know - we know this wonderful crystals from Turkey, they are at the same high standard of color, but even larger crystals from this locality are not more than 10mm in size. Then we have this pale, more grey-blue crystals from Ohio - yes, they form nice arrangements and are quite prominent, but also here - they will not come even close to the color of my new ones. We have samples from Poland - they are white to yellow, but not even pale blue and of course we shouldn´t forget the material from Italy (Racalmuto, Sicily), they show light blue color - probably compare-able with Madagascar color, but most times not really well formed clusters and many of them are dull. Do some research - but I am pretty sure you will get to the same result as I did - these new Celestines are among the finest in the world! But now more about the particular piece: a super fine developed and intense coloured single crystal of celestine with a size of  21 mm x 16 mm, perfectly placed on top of its matrix. The esthetic appearence of this example speaks for itself.

Mineral Data
What's on the rock

Celestine

Formula: 
SrSO4
Strunz: 
7.AD.35
Hardness: 
3.0 - 3.5
Streak: 
White
Type Locality: 
Bell's Mill, Bellwood, Blair Co., Pennsylvania, USA...