FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Dany Mabillard]

With a 30mm cube.

[Carles Millan]

Hard to provide it Dany

[Dany Mabillard]

[Tobi]

I think there are not too many localities with such well-developed halite crystals that appear on the market. Hallstatt/Austria, Wieliczka/Poland and the central-German localities Neuhof/Hesse and Merkers/Thuringia are the first that come to my mind ...

... this is only a clue and maybe won't help. But if you provide some good photos of the matrix/backside, maybe we could widen or shorten the list of possible localities ...

Best regards
Tobi

[alfredo]

Sometimes I hear collectors discuss which mineral is the most common on Earth's surface. The usual candidates in such discussions seem to be quartz, calcite, feldspars or clay minerals, depending how well crystallized we set the parameters for the discussion. But if we refer only to well crystallized macro specimens, then all those answers are wrong, and the winner is clearly halite! If we look only at one big salt deposit, the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, and conservatively estimate 5 good cabinet specimens under each square meter of crust, x 10,000 square km, equals 50,000,000,000 cabinet specimens. Every man, woman and child on the planet could have 7 each. And then all the other recent and geologically ancient salt deposits on Earth... In summary, halite as good crystals is such an incredibly widespread mineral, that it is utterly impossible to say where your specimen might have come from, unless there is some rare associated species, or a peculiar color, or some other defining characteristic. California? Peru? Bolivia? Ethiopia? Europe? ...impossible to tell. Best put it in a salt grinder and use it on the dining room table ;))

[Carles Millan]

[lluis]

Why not?

Just more pills for lowering blood pressure... :-)

Lluís

[Dany Mabillard]

Hello "Saltmen",

The specimen is from Poland (according the information from the Auction Expert).

According to my research, I found a photo with the same color and the same type of distribution of the cubes (a few large cubes and many small cubes for the rest) whose provenance was Wieliczka Mine, Wieliczka County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland.

Dany.