Vote for your favorite mineral in #MinCup26! - Sphalerite vs. Anorthite Both zinc ore Sphalerite and calcium plagioclase feldspar Anorthite have perfect cleavage that will split cleanly if you hit them with a hammer, but only one can claim a larger split of your votes!
Schooner (1958) discovered it in l954. "He obtained specimens of glassy material, up to well over a foot across, from a wedge-shaped vein of alkaline minerals which had been exposed by quarrying and subsequently developed by a number of collectors… who threw the pollucite aside, in the belief that it was quartz. The author himself was deceived by this material for a while, even though he had been diligently searching for the mineral in the area. The pollucite, not previously reported from Connecticut, was intimately associated with petalite, spodumene, pink and green tourmaline, amblygonite [montebrasite], cleavelandite, lepidolite, and quartz. Two or three masses had been completely altered to a clay which became waxy on drying, but most of the pollucite was fresh and had a high cesium content."
Habit:
massive, granular
Colour:
colorless to pale grey
Quality for species:
Poor for species, only of interest for locality collectors. (#)
Strickland Quarry, Strickland pegmatite, Collins Hill, Portland, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA