Red Quartz

Item Description

This piece comes to us from a discovery in 2017. Since they were first discovered, these specimens have been labeled by various dealers 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 possibly Goethite. The locality near Tinejdad (I'm told it's the Tarya Mine) has 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 back/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 a select few are "studded" with a secondary overgrowth of tiny drusy Quartz. 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 12.6 cm long, and is DOUBLY-TERMINATED! 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.