Quartz

specimen number:
8911055

location:
Chamonix, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Bonneville, Haute-Savoie, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, France

description:
A very fine glassy and gemmy slightly smoky but mostly colorless gwindel crystal grouping of quartz. Accented with micro green chlorite, this sits up perfectly by itself or display and is in great condition all around. Classic French Alpine specimen. The specimen comes with a previous label from the Alton collection.

The Mont Blanc massif around Chamonix, located in Haute-Savoie within the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region of France, is an alpine environment shaped by tectonic uplift, granitic intrusion, and intense glacial erosion. Hydrothermal fluids circulating through alpine tension fissures during mountain-building events deposited high-quality minerals within granite clefts. Historically, local mountain guides and mineral prospectors, known as cristalliers, have braved steep alpine cliffs for centuries to search high-altitude rock faces for open crystal cavities. Chamonix is world-famous for producing exceptional smoky quartz crystals, brilliant pink fluorite octahedra, and rare gwindel quartz habits. Gwindel quartz is a prized habit where multiple parallel sub-crystals systematically rotate along a growth axis, producing a flattened, twisted crystal aggregate with serrated edges. Highly sought after by collectors, these distinct smoky gwindel specimens represent some of the most impressive structural achievements of alpine mineral growth.

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