FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[arturo shaw]

Hi Amir, nice to see you around here as well (sad we didn't meet in München).

Say hello to your "roommate" from me. ;-)

In München I've been looking for "quartz with faces" (s and x faces...) and found some, but Carles Curto told me a story on a quite special quartz with pinacoid, perhaps he could tell us about it... even if it was not "prase". :-)

I am just expecting a prase quartz from Tasos at any moment (snail mail goes slowly). As soon as it arrives I'll post a picture in case it is of a different kind that those already in the thread.

Thanks for the info and for your page as well.

Greetings,

Arturo

[Tsinidis Tasos]

Hello to all!
Indeed, Amir's website is for me the best someone can find for information about quartz, and i am proud that a few of my specimens are pictured there.
I am looking for new and unknown mineral locations here in Greece and in a few cases green quartz shows up.The specimen in the photo comes from a small skarn zone near the village of Kato Vrondou in Kato Nevrokopi basin, Drama prefecture, East Macedonia, Greece. The specimen is completely included with a green mineral that I believe is chlorite.
Also chlorite is the coloring mineral of a few partly green alpine type quartz crystals from the area of Kato Nevrokopi.
I had long discussions with collectors here in Greece about prase quartz. Almost all of them use the term "prase" only for specimens that come from Serifos Island (hedenbergite inclusions). My opinion is that every quartz crystal that is colored green (from whatever inclusion) should be called prase.

[Tsinidis Tasos]

This is another specimen from the area of Kato Nevrokopi but from another location (Kresti hill). The color is a uniform light green and it is probably from chlorite inclusions.

[John S. White]

Tsinidis:

I really like the second quartz that you showed a photo of, very unusual habit.
Amir suggests that hedenbergite may be a misidentification, no one seems to know who first called the Seriphos inclusions hedenbergite and a pyroxene family mineral instead of an amphibole seems unlikely.

In my opinion the most fantastic quartzes from Seriphos are those that are partly green and partly amethyst.

[Tsinidis Tasos]

You are right Mr.White.
I am also aware of the analysis results of G. Niedermayr on the green quartz specimens from Serifos that are in the collection of Natural History Museum in Vienna. He found no hedenbergite as inclusions. Simply many people (including myself sometimes) say that the inclusions are hedenbergite, probably because it is the main matrix mineral for the green quartz.
I also don't know why there is no additional analysis from other scientists (especially from universities here in Greece). If hedenbergite is wrong then it should be corrected.
You are also right about bi-colored specimens from Serifos.They are really nice and not easy to find these days. I also like very much this smooth change of color from green to purple in the same crystal. I have also found similar color changes in quartz crystals from alpine type quartz veins in Kato Nevrokopi basin. In these crystals, color changes from smoky quartz to amethyst and (rarely) from smoky quartz to rock crystal (sorry for the bad photo).

[arturo shaw]

Hi Tasos,

The prase quartz from Serifos and the epidote from Kimmeria are now safe and resting among my minerals, thank you.

Here you can see a picture of the quartz (crystal about 2.5 cm). It's not my picture but Tasos.

Best wishes

Arturo

[bugrock]

One More Green Quartz Inclusion:

Just ran into another mineral that is mentioned as causing green inclusions in quartz, Fuchsite, a variety of mica, another phyllosilicate.

See mindat image: https://www.mindat.org/photo-217487.html

[nicu]

There is a Quartz specimen of Cavnic Mine, Maramures, Romania, unusual for this area.
Specimen size: 14x7,5x9,5 cm
Nicu Pascanu Collection and photo.
Collected from 05.2010