Red Quartz

Item Description

We've seen these specimens on the market with several varietal names including Ferruginous Quartz, Red Quartz, "Hematoid" Quartz / Hematite Quartz, Eisenkiesel, and I'm sure there are more. The material is essentially Quartz that has been colored completely or nearly completely red by inclusions of iron oxide, most likely Hematite or Goethite. The locality around Tinejdad has recently produced some superb examples of these beautiful Quartz specimens with robust crystals, larger size display pieces and that intense stark red color. This specimen has a fantastic uniformly red color on the display side, and the reverse side shows the original Quartz crystals (before the introduction of the iron oxide), which show a wonderful gemmy slight smoky hue. The habit of the crystals is predominantly elongated prisms, but you can see they are "studded" with a secondary overgrowth of small pyramidal faces. The piece is in great shape overall, save the periphery where it was detached from the surrounding part of the pocket. The largest crystal measures 9.5 cm long. If you're a Quartz collector and you don't have one of these in your collection, don't miss out. They are beautiful display specimens with a pleasing color, and pieces like this one were few and far between from what we were able to select. If you collect Moroccan minerals, you have to have one of these in your collection.