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[Firmo Espinar]

Quartz from Colombia.

I bought this crystal here in Medellín. It looks like the classic New York´s buildings.
On this occasion the dealer gave me the locality. It comes from the Municipio Suaita in Santander Department, Colombia. Exactly from the little town called San Cristobal.

I've read about the Tessin habit quartz from Switzerland. In a Tessin habit quartz the hexagonal prism grow continuously thinner towards the tip and presents horizontal growth lines.

Tessin crystal habit is the result of repeated alternating termination and prism faces forming a tapered crystal with striated faces. This habit shows a crystal structure that is indicative of slow growth.

The formation of Tessin habit crystals is rather rare in nature and depends on specific conditions in the pocket.

I guess this is a Tessin quartz with the sharp tapering habit, not Switzerland but Colombian.

“Single flawless crystal of pristine See-Through Tessin habit quartz.
This is a specimen with optical clarity and brightness. The horizontal lines you see, add both personality and luster. Rich in faces at the tip.”

[Tobi]

Very beautiful quartz crystal!

[Firmo Espinar]

Thank you so much for your words Tobi. Very glad you like it.

Aragonite from Cartagena, Murcia, Spain.

Pyrite from Navajún.

[Firmo Espinar]

Emerald on Pyrite from Muzo, Colombia.

[Firmo Espinar]

To celebrate the first hundred post a Pyrite from Navajún, La Rioja, Spain.

[Firmo Espinar]

Gypsum and aragonite from Almeria, Spain.

Aragonite from Soria, Spain.

[Firmo Espinar]

I forgot to comment that the gypsum Karst in Sorbas has been a Natural Place protected since 1979 approximately in a 60%. In the remaining one 40% there are installed five or six quarries that produce a very estimated gypsum for the construction in the USA and China.

These quarries have men at work 24 hours/day and 7 days/week and constantly ships are loaded between fifty and seventy thousand tons in the Garrucha´s port way to Shanghai and to New York.

This material is a very important source of income for the region. It provokes an incredible movement of truckers, gas stations, restaurants, lawyers, longshoremen, engineers, port personnel, taxes, etc...

Due the gypsum deposit, the Garrucha´s port is the most profitable port facility of the whole Andalusia, the coastal region of the south of Spain.

Also since 2002 in the karst there is a tourist trail with three difficulty levels.

A good friend who works in one of the quarries gave me the gypsum i posted before.

Now an azurite from Morocco.

[Firmo Espinar]

Quartz from Santander, Colombia.

Three doubly terminated crystals in cross arranged. This is the universal mathematical unknown: “X”.


Pyrite from Navajún.

Eight or nine overlapping cubes giving a curious appearance to the piece.

[Pierre Joubert]

Very nice Colombian quartz specimen!

[Firmo Espinar]

Hi Pierre, thank you very much for your message.

Do you like it more for the crystals or for the mathematics? Glad you like.

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Gypsum from Tunisia.

A desert rose purchased in 1998 in Hammamet. One of the first pieces of the collection. Previous to this one I only preserved three or four about 1977.


Aragonite from Málaga, Spain.

Crust of cream-coloured aragonite on a surface of an intensely yellow limonite

[Firmo Espinar]

Quartz from Portugal.

Druse of milky quartz, probably coating with orange iron oxides.

[Firmo Espinar]

Quartz from San Cristobal, Santander, Colombia.

Clear cluster quartz crystals sharply terminated.

The largest crystal is 62 mm long. Its clarity allows to see the horizontal striations on the sides, that are typical of the crystals I have from San Cristobal, Suaita.


Small Galena from Jaén, Spain.

[Firmo Espinar]

Quartz from Segovia, Spain.

Thin crust of small crystals quartz with a couple of giants.
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Pyrite from La Rioja, Spain.

Small cubic pyrite crystals on matrix.

Some of them intergrown and many have mirror effect in the faces, like the pyrite 7311.1 posted before.

With different forms, from a square of the chess with a little height to a shoebox.
Field collected in 2012.

[Firmo Espinar]

Quartz from San Cristobal, Santander, Colombia.

Specimen of divergent spiny clear crystals quartz about 8 cm legth, growing from quartz matrix. Some of them with horizontal striations and termination faces near the top of the sides and all sharp undamaged terminations.

Some needle show one greatly enlarged rhombohedral face at the tip.

The crystals are bigger than the usual size I have from this locality. The largest crystal is 9 cm long.
It is hard for me to take a nice picture, but i think the crystals present themselves in a sculptural arrangement.
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Aragonite from Soria, Spain.

Brown aragonite crystals showing the hexagonal prismatic habit, and twinned cyclically on {110}.

[Firmo Espinar]

Fluorite from Asturias, Spain.

Two intergrown cubes of purple fluorite. Opaque crystals with faces and edges not smooth, both with “tetris” growths.

The geometric coloured zones in his core may be growth ghosts, only visible with backlight.

It´s from Asturias but I´m not sure about the locality.
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Microcline from Barcelona, Spain.

[Jordi Fabre]

[Firmo Espinar]

Hi dear boss Jordi.

Thank you very much for your message.

I am posting two new photographs of this fluorite in order to help identify the locality. Both shots are with LED lights, not natural light.

Certainly was lacking a natural photograph as you ask, but they were turning out more tasteless for me.

I add the purchase was at Expominerales Madrid (Spain) in March 2013, in the stand of Félix Gómez called Krystalia. I also bought from him two fluorites from the Moscona Mine (Asturias).

Really, thank you for changing the orthoclase example from Gualba, very near to your city. Nobody better than you to know this specimen.

Sorry for the job I brought up, but I had this piece labeled as orthoclase.

Best regards.

[Jordi Fabre]

[Firmo Espinar]

Hi Jordi.

I thought so, from La Viesca.
I had seen some finer and more transparent but with the same growths and morphology than this one. And with very seemed ghosts from the Geoda del Tiro in La Viesca Mine.

Thank you for your valued opinion.

If you want to add “La Viesca Mine, Zona minera de La Collada, Oviedo, Asturias” will be perfect.
Thank you.
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Calcite from Tunisia.
Both halves of this geode have dog-tooth calcite crystals, and specially in the left the growing is like a cactus. The two halves fit perfectly together, and there is no damage outside.
Was purchased in 1998 in the Chebika´s oasis, near the Algeria border. One of the first pieces in the collection.

Bariopharmacosiderite from María Josefa Mine, Almería, Spain.

[Firmo Espinar]

An intense yellow limonite from Málaga, Spain.

Specimen with stalactitic forms, intense yellow color and some calcite crystals.
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Azurite from Almería, Spain.

Porcupine Azurite crystals.