Falin Lake, Usseglio, Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Falin Lake	Lake
Usseglio	Commune
Metropolitan City of Turin	Metropolitan City
Piedmont	Region
Italy	Country

Falin Lake, Lanzo Valleys, Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, Italy

Rodingite dikes in serpentinite. This locality is known for excellent epidote crystals.

At the so-called "historical" site, discovered at the beginning of the 1970, the epidote-bearing dikes crop out some tens of metres above Lago Falin, at the foot of Piccola Uja and Costa Nu.

GPS coordinates are set to Falin Lake itself.

Important notes:

The locality name Falin Lake, Lago Falin or Laghi Falin is used among mineral collectors to indicate specimens recovered from various occurrences in a rather large area on the right side of the Viù Valley between Passo delle Coupe Trape, and Rocca del Forno. Some of these occurrences are located on rough terrain and difficult to access.

The main mineral sites can be grouped into the following sublocalities:

- Lago Falin proper: includes the so-called "historical" site above Lago Falin, at the foot of Piccola Uja and Costa Nu (pistachio-green epidote); the outcrops near the top of Costa Nu (deep green epidote, pale green titanite, diopside, grossular); erratics near the lake (brown and green vesuvianite).

- Punta Cirel: includes various sites to the ESE of the lake, at the end of the ridge descending from Punta Cirel, near a 300-m-high rocky tower and the nearby pinnacle, locally known as Dindu or 'l Dindo. Outcrops on the Dindu wall have yielded deep green but not very bright epidote, white titanite, diopside, vesuvianite, and grossular. In the rocks below the Dindu there are two important occurrences known as "Trincea" or "Trincerone" (i.e., the big trench), because of the large excavation produced by mineral collectors along a rodingite dike (dark green epidote crystals, sometimes twinned, colourless apatite, yellow titanite) and "Vene di Vasco" (i.e., the Vasco's veins), where mineral collector Vasco Giannerini recovered the best epidote specimens ever found in this area (large dark green, lustrous, twinned crystals of epidote sometimes in association with chalcopyrite and grossular). Other rodingite dikes have yielded perovskite (up to 1 cm on edge), magnetite, and grossular; magnetite (up to 2.5 cm) and grossular; dark green epidote, calcite, diopside, and chalcopyrite; epidote or grossular in association with titanite and apatite; peculiar specimens in which red lustrous crystals of grossular with clinochlore are present on one side and prismatic crystals of epidote with clinochlore on the opposite side.

- Punta Nonna: includes various sites at the end of the ridge descending from Punta Nonna, both in Vallone dell'Alpet or Alpetto (epidote, grossular) and Vallone di Muià (epidote, chalcopyrite, and a grey-green fibrous mineral not yet analysed).

- Colle della Forcola: includes outcrops of epidote-rich veins near Colle della Forcola.

In some collections, also specimens from the Lago Nero - Grange Castelletto area, located further west, are generically indicated as from Lago Falin.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References