Detailed information
Species
Polylithionite, Rhabdophane-(Ce), Serandite and Leucophanite
Dimensions
45 x 49 x 15
mm
Weight
16 g
Locality
Mont Saint-Hilaire La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM Montérégie, Québec, Canada
Condition
No recorded repairs
What at treat! This eye-catching miniature specimen will not disappoint. Comprising a number of Mont Saint-Hilaire's rarities, it just demands attention. Firstly, there is the 4.9 cm wide, double-sided rosette of micaceous Polylithionite. Then, richly dispersed over one side of the rosette are hundreds of beige-coloured mm-size Rhabdophane-(Ce) rounded prisms, of the sort often illustrated from MSH. On the same side several fragmentary crystal sections (up to 5 mm across) of yellow Leucophanite can be seen. On the other side of the Polylithionite rosette are several bladed partial crystals of pinkish Serandite. So, not just a pretty rosette, but a specimen full of mineralogical wonder too. If you are new to the locality, it is one of those rare mineralogical wonders of nature, with a recorded 439 species and is type locality to a staggering 73 species. The quarry is situated in Rouville County in Quebec, Canada, a little due east of Montreal. For many years two quarries worked adjacent to one another, the Poudrette and De-Mix, only separated by an unexcavated demarcation wall. Once this was mined out, the two quarries amalgamated, so it is now the convention to name the whole quarry as Poudrette. It is not known which quarry this specimen came out of at the time of mining (i.e. either Poudrette or De-Mix), so it is simply given as Mont Saint-Hilaire.