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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. UPDATE: I am now out of the lower grade bulk material with not allot of the higher grades as well. There is no more of this available where I used to dig it so the price has gone up and soon there will be no more avaiable. |
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a picture to enlarge - 2 cabs 2 views
 Opal Fluorite pair 9/14 01 - exceptional pair 27 x 21 x 3 mm - 14 carat & 26 x 22 x 3 mm - 14 carat $100.00+ SHIPPING 
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