Opalized Fluorite
One of the most scarce, beautiful and unusual stones in the world, this
stone only comes from one very small area in the Utah west desert; the
Brush Wellman beryllium mines, where they mine (the 4th lightest element)
beryllium for use in missile nose cones and many other high-tech
metallurgical uses. It is not open to the public for collecting and very
little of this material sees anything other than the ore crusher to
extract the about 1% to 2% beryllium contained in the opal tuff. Try to
find this exquisite gemstone and you'll see that it's not only very
rare, it is very scarce. It is a soft to hard opalized stone
that forms in very small to 100+ pound "nodules", composed of
predominantly opalized fluorite (blues, purples and whites), often
with many other minerals such as quartz, dolomite, rhodonite, manganese
oxide, beryllium and other surprises. It often has a "crackled"
appearance and is sometimes called "Tiffany Stone", "Bertrandite"
"Purple Opal" or "Ice Cream Opalite". I call it Opal-Fluorite.
Wholesale value of this material (if you could find it) is about $0.50 per
gram or $250/lb. |
