Home > Thumbnails – June 17 > MS1604 Barrerite on Quartz

Barrerite on Quartz - Sold


Barrerite is a rare sodium-rich zeolite named in honor of Richard M. Barrer (1910-1996), professor at Imperial College London and zeolite specialist (Coombs et al., 1997). When first found in a tidal zone on Sardinia, Italy, Passaglia & Pongiluppi (1974) provisionally identified the mineral as sodian stellerite, however noting both a high sodium content and unusual space group symmetry. Later working with the International Mineralogical Association, these same two mineralogists obtained full species status for the Italian mineral, which they named barrerite (Passaglia & Pongiluppi, 1975).

Barrerite remained a very rare species until an occurrence in Alaska supplied systematic collectors with abundant high quality material (Di Renzo & Gabelica, 1997). This fine example features a 3.4 by 1.9 cm crystal with a bit of attached quartz matrix. At the very tip of the crystal, there is evidence of parallel growth, which shows as a small gap at the tip of the "roman sword" termination. This piece is not a competition sized thumbnail, but rather a box-buster, for those who like to fit pieces as big as possible into Perky boxes.