Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:40 pm Posts: 2667 Location: South Dakota
The brandbergs are from the brandberg mtns. in namibia..from what i understand from my friend, who i picked this up at from his house last week, when he was there he told me that the crystals from in basaltic rocks. They are very very difficult to remove and any of these brandberg crystals on matrix are pretty rare. The local miners don't have the proper tools to remove the crystals attached and just break them off. There is a white guy from South Africa who has a compound in or near the mtns. with the only water around for miles well he has the only ptper tools to remove the best crystals..diamond saws, pneumatic drills, etc.... well he gets the best of the best and sells them at a premium which they are worth in my opinion. The poor "native" miners all just have hand tools so many times crystals are damaged trying to remove them from the super hard rock..if only large machines could get up there..sigh...The crystals come in smokey, ammy, and clear..they often come with both smokey and ammy colors...as you see in this specimen some come sceptered some not..some are skeletal(fentster) some are not..some come with 3 phase inclusions(mud, air, water)some come with movable enhydros. There must have been all kinds of changes in chemical makeup, groundwater infusions, and what have you to make such odd crystals..this one is like bottom of the barrle compared to whats out there....They really are some of the most unique crystals in the entire world and are highly sought after now in the min. world....good single crystals regularly top $20K..what they are really known for is there inclusions..they are an inclusionist(is that a word..inclusionist..if not please mark that one down as my invention so i can copywrite it )..like I said three phase inclsuions are typical in these crystals..more so with air and solid..some of the crystals i have seen you could stare into and see, as Pliny put it, "worlds in there"..I might have posted some sweet ones before with movable enhydros..if i remember...all of this info is off the top of my head and better info would/could be had by googling it
_________________ MrAmethystguy ~ Some jokes just fluorite over my head!
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