Tiffany Stone / Opalized
Fluorite / Bertrandite
click to enlarge
Opal Fluorite rough 9/1/11
- 07 From my personal
10 year old collection. Old Stock brecciated classic colors -
There is some very good cutting here - some pits and
fractures to work around or stabilize as is common with this
high grade. The pitting and fractures in this slice are
minimal for this grade. Well worth the effort. AAA+
5 x 4 x .26 inches - 120
gram - $65.00
PLUS SMALL FLAT RATE BOX
SHIPPING
Rare
Opalized Fluorite!
This material is one of the most scarce,
beautiful and unusual stones in the world, this stone only comes from
one very small area of beryllium mines in the Utah west desert where
they mine (the 4th lightest element) beryllium for use in missile nose
cones and many other high-tech metallurgical uses. It is not open to
the public for collecting and very little of this material sees
anything other than the ore crusher to extract the about 1% to 2%
beryllium contained in the opal tuff. Try to find this exquisite
gemstone and you'll see that it's not only very rare, it is
very scarce. It is a soft to hard opalized stone that forms in
very small to 100+ pound "nodules", composed of predominantly
opalized fluorite (blues, purples and whites), often with many
other minerals such as quartz, dolomite, rhodonite, manganese,
beryllium and other surprises. It often has a "crackled" appearance
and is sometimes called "Tiffany Stone", "Bertrandite" "Purple Opal"
or "Ice Cream Opalite". I call it Opal-Fluorite.
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