Image Credit: RRUFF Database Project (Lafuente et al. 2015; RRUFF ID 090024)
Image Credit: RRUFF Database Project (Lafuente et al. 2015; RRUFF ID 090024)
Specimen Title
Elyite
Associated Minerals
undetermined
Principal Mineral
Size
Micromount; 12mm
Location in the Mine
Undetermined
Provenance
Innes, J.; Gartrell, B.; Sielecki, R.; Pinch, W.W.
Collection
MGMH; 2020.7.2053
Entry Number
Specimen; TSNB613
Description
A shard of sulphide-rich dolostone (?), one surface of which has a light coating of purple elyite which, under magnification, resolves to mats of acicular crystals (Exhibit 2).
The specimen was formerly in the collections of TCL mineralogist John Innes and Blair Gartrell. Gartrell's collection was dispersed by Australian deealer Rob Sielecki, whose label (Exhibit 3) includes Gartrell's collection number 11320. This number corresponds to specimen JI-512 in the E.H. Nickel catalogue of the Innes collection (circa 1993, unpublished), which describes it as follows: "A sulphidic specimen with some patches of violet elyite (XRD A10510) fibres (up to 1 mm) on two surfaces. Some round, pale green patches (up to 2 mm) of chalky duftite". Nickel gives the size of the specimen as 70 x 60 x 40 mm, so the specimen featured here (exhibits 1 and 2) is evidently only a small portion of the original. (Another fragment conserved at MGMH with the same Gartrell number measures 37 mm across.)
Duftite (noted in the Nickel catalogue) has not been identified on the MGMH fragment. Unfortunately Innes' original label has not been preserved and the location in the mine is not recorded.