Fluorite with Sphalerite, Dolomite

specimen number:
2062980

location:
Elmwood mine, Smith Co., Tennessee, USA

description:
Incredibly attractive and aesthetic combination piece with a light purple mostly gemmy and lustrous cubic fluorite crystal measuring 3.5 x 3.5 x 3.5 cm along its edges, this standing up free from a brecciated matrix with large lustrous black twinned crystals of sphalerite and sparkling white crystals of small dolomite. This is in really top condition all around with just one very tiny micro-cleave present. The specimen comes with a previous label from the collection of Ray DeMark. The label notes that the specimen was collected by Brian Huntsman from the Occidental Gore area 06-21 on July 3, 1998.

The Elmwood complex, comprising primarily of the Elmwood, Gordonsville, and Cumberland Mines, in Smith County, Tennessee, is situated within Paleozoic carbonate rock formations where mineralizing hydrothermal brines circulated through ancient, open solution cavities, faults, and breccia zones. Originally developed for industrial underground mining starting in the 1970s, the facility gained global renown among mineral collectors because miners recovered world-class crystal specimens from vugs and cavities intersected during operations. While the complex has experienced intermittent commercial closures and changes in corporate ownership over the decades, it remains a legendary locality celebrated for producing some of the finest aesthetic mineral crystals ever discovered.

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