Hydroxylellestadite

specimen number:
2351067

location:
Crestmore, Riverside Co., California, USA

description:
Yellowish brown crystallized measuring to 0.8 cm in length frozen throughout a blue massive calcite matrix. Good reference example for the species.

The Crestmore Quarry, located in Riverside County, California, USA, is internationally famous as one of the most productive contact-metamorphic skarn localities in North America. Geologically, the site consists of Paleozoic crystalline limestone masses that were intruded by Mesozoic quartz monzonite and pegmatites, inducing high-temperature thermal metamorphism and metasomatism that yielded over 150 distinct mineral species, including numerous type-locality minerals. Mining operations began around 1909 to extract limestone and marble for commercial cement production by the Riverside Cement Company, utilizing both open-pit quarrying and block-caving underground mining methods over several decades. Throughout its operational history, mineralogists and field collectors systematically documented world-class specimens of vesuvianite, grossular garnet, wollastonite, diopside, and rare calcium silicates, making Crestmore a legendary site in North American mineral collecting history.

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