Vivianite with Barite

One of the very few Vivianite specimens I have seen from Tomokoni with associated Barite! These Vivianite crystals have, without question, the best luster and often gemminess of any Vivianite specimens to date from this country, or virtually any other country. Another outstanding feature is the wonderful color contrast between the vivid emerald green of the Vivianite and the altered red sandstone matrix. These pieces have what I think is some of the best matrix for these crystals from Bolivia. It's not completely unstable like decomposing Limonite and it provides a much more appealing contrast than ordinary Pyrite. This particular piece features a few beautiful, highly lustrous, sharp, GEM QUALITY, emerald green color, prismatic, textbook, "sword"-shaped crystals of Vivianite with white bladed Barite and minor metamorphosed Sandstone. Some of the Vivianite crystals are doubly terminated, which is rare from Tomokoni. There were very few crystals with the quality of this piece in the lot. Keep in mind that over 75% of the specimens from this find have had SERIOUS damage problems. This one is in very good shape for this material, and just look at how sharp, lustrous and GEMMY the crystals are. John Sinkankas said this about Vivianite in his book, Mineralogy : "The goal of collectors in respect to Vivianite specimens, is to obtain single crystals from the Bolivian localities." John listed at least a dozen localities for Vivianite in his book and stressed that lustrous, gemmy crystals are almost impossible to obtain from any locality. He also states that the "crystals are seldom sharply terminated". The terminations on the above specimen are very sharp and highly lustrous. Specimen # BOL711B113