Image: Phenakite-262068

Description: Phenakite Locality: Jos Plateau, Plateau State, Nigeria (Locality at mindat.org) Size: 3.7 x 3.1 x 2.5 cm. At 39 grams, this is one of the larger specimens recovered. It is a floater, complete-all-around and pristine save one small ding on a bottom face (hard to see). It was the best overall specimen in the small lot of this material which showed up in Thailand at the cutting factories, in August of 2009 (several kilograms in total, representing about half the find). Bill Larson, a gem and mineral dealer, who was there at the time on gem business and was shown the material, immediately realized their specimen value and was able to save half a dozen good pieces from the cutters. This crystal has a very 3-dimensional structure to it, and is better crystallized than any other here. It has real faces, and a very unusual rounded termination more like that of a heliodor (but with garnet surface patterning), than of any phenakite I have ever seen. It is a bizarre specimen that is really quite unique from other gem crystals in its overall form and aspect. It looks for all-the-world like a completely colorless spessartine garnet at first glance, with those complex striations and patterning prominent around the whole specimen. In person, this glows with brilliant light bouncing in and out of the crystal off all the myriad facets of the faces. It is absolutely colorless, a pure colorlessness that is startling in its utter lack of any impurity which adds some coloration to most minerals.
Title: Phenakite-262068
Credit: http://www.mindat.org/photo-262068.html
Author: Rob Lavinsky / iRocks.com
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
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