Zircon

specimen number:
2063692

location:
Helen Hunt Falls, El Paso Co., Colorado, USA

description:

A cluster of large lustrous brown sharply formed crystals of zircon with very little matrix. This is in good condition. Choice thumbnail for the species and locality.

Situated in Cheyenne Canon near Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, Helen Hunt Falls cuts through the iconic Pikes Peak Granite, a massive Precambrian igneous batholith that intruded into the Earth crust over one billion years ago. The area has a rich history as a scenic tourist destination named after nineteenth-century author and activist Helen Hunt Jackson, attracting nature lovers, sightseers, and rockhounds to its steep granite cliffs and cascading water. Mineral collectors explore the pegmatites and miarolitic cavities embedded in the surrounding Pikes Peak Granite, which are known to yield small, sharply formed crystals of zircon along with quartz, microcline, and fluorite. These zircon specimens typically formed during the final cooling stages of the granitic magma, where zirconium and other trace elements concentrated in gas-rich pockets, allowing brownish-red to amber tetragonal zircon crystals to crystallize alongside companion minerals.

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