Euclase (superb color)

Item Description

Euclase is a fairly uncommon beryllium silicate mineral, often found in white/colorless examples. There are a few places around the world where notably colorful crystals have been found and the Last Hope Mine in Zimbabwe produced what are certainly some of the deepest blue colored Euclase extant. This pegmatite locality is best known for these beautiful crystals, which are almost always seen in thumbnail-sized examples. This piece is a wonderful thumbnail featuring a few very sharp, highly lustrous, well-formed, crystals of Euclase, free of matrix. When backlit, you can see the crystals are color zoned with deep sapphire blue areas on the edges, and virtually colorless sections in the center. The blue color is incredibly rich, and the piece GLOWS with strong backlighting. The specimen was mined during the 1960s era. No major damage on the front, but it's not 100% complete on the back where it separated from the pocket wall.
From the collection of Armon McPherson, a retired physicist, now living in New Mexico. Armon received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 1985, and worked at the laser laboratory at the University of Illinois at Circle Center. In the summer of 1997, Armon moved to the Argonne National Laboratory where he worked at the Advanced Photon Source, then the world’s largest synchrotron facility dedicated as an x-ray source. In 2001, he was asked to join a team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque to conduct laser research for DARPA. Finally, staying within Sandia, he transferred to the Z Facility, the world’s most powerful x-ray facility. He retired in the spring of 2017. Armon's introduction to mineral collecting came in the 1980s during graduate school when he attended his first mineral show. He took up the hobby of faceting gems, and focused his early collection on gem crystals, and later transitioned into collecting non-gem species. We are proud to offer specimens from his worldwide mineral collection here for you.