Name/Title
FluoriteEntry/Object ID
2004.1.27Description
Assemblage Zone: pegmatite dikes
Chemical Composition: CaF2, Calcium Fluoride Be
Crystal System: Cubic or Isometric S
Description: Common Name: Fluorite
Group Name: Halides
Chemistry: CaF2, Calcium Fluoride
Location: Rogerley Mine, England
Description: Tall green crystal with purple and white in it and behind it.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Color is extremely variable and many times can be an intense purple, blue, green or yellow; also colorless, reddish orange, pink, white and brown. A single crystal can be multi-colored.
Luster is vitreous.
Transparency: Crystals are transparent to translucent.
Crystal System: Isometric; 4/m bar 3 2/m
Crystal Habits include the typical cube and to a lesser extent, the octahedron as well as combinations of these two and other rarer isometric habits. Always with equant crystals; less common are crusts and botryoidal forms. Twinning also produces penetration twins that look like two cubes grown together.
Cleavage is perfect in 4 directions forming octahedrons.
Fracture is irregular and brittle.
Hardness is 4
Specific Gravity is 3.1+ (average)
Streak is white.
Other Characteristics: Often fluorescent blue or more rarely green, white, red or violet and may be thermoluminescent, phosphorescent and triboluminescent.
Associated Minerals are many and include calcite, quartz, willemite, barite, witherite, apatite, chalcopyrite, galena, sphalerite, pyrite and other sulfides.
Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, color zoning, hardness (harder than calcite, but softer than quartz or apatite), fluorescence and especially the octahedral cleavage.
Fracture: is irregular and bri
Hardness: 4 Flourite
Luster: Vitreous
Occurrence: Fluorite may occur as a vein deposit, especially with metallic minerals, where it often forms a part of the gangue (the worthless "host-rock" in which valuable minerals occur) and may be associated with galena, sphalerite, barite, quartz, and calcite. It is a common mineral in deposits of hydrothermal origin and has been noted as a primary mineral in granites and other igneous rocks and as a common minor constituent of dolostone and limestone.
Fluorite is a widely occurring mineral which is found in large deposits in many areas. Notable deposits occur in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Norway, Mexico, and Ontario in Canada. Large deposits also occur in Kenya in the Kerio Valley area within the Great Rift Valley. In the United States, deposits are found in Missouri, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kentucky, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, New Hampshire, New York, Alaska and Texas. Flourite has been the state mineral of Illinois since 1965. At that time, Illinois was the largest producer of fluorite in the United States; however, the last Illinois mine closed in 1995.
The largest documented single crystal of fluorite was a cube 2.12 m in size and weighed ~16 tons.
Notable Occurrences include in addition to those mentioned above Cumberland, England; Spain; China; Brazil; Morocco; Bancroft, Ontario, Canada; Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico; Germany; Elmwood, Tennessee; Rosiclare, Illinois; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Pugh Quarry and Wood County, Ohio; Nancy Hanks Mine, Colorado and many other USA localities as well as many other localities from around the world.
Specific Gravity: 3.1
Streak: White
Variety: Fluorite is a mineral with a veritable bouquet of brilliant colors. Fluorite is well known and prized for its glassy luster and rich variety of colors. The range of common colors for fluorite starting from the hallmark color purple, then blue, green, yellow, colorless, brown, pink, black and reddish orange is amazing and is only rivaled in color range by quartz. Intermediate pastels between the previously mentioned colors are also possible. It is easy to see why fluorite earns the reputation as "The Most Colorful Mineral in the World".
The many colors of fluorite are truly wonderful. The rich purple color is by far fluorite's most famous and popular color. It easily competes with the beautiful purple of amethyst. Often specimens of fluorite and amethyst with similar shades of purple are used in mineral identification classes to illustrate the folly of using color as the sole means to identify minerals.Collection
Suomynona Mineral Collection, Suomynona CollectionAcquisition
Accession
2004.1Source or Donor
Suomynona Mineral CollectionAcquisition Method
DonationDimensions
Width
6-1/2 inDepth
6 inLength
10 inWeight
10.831 ozDimension Notes
Dimension taken at widest pointsLocation
Location
Display Case
DS-8Room
Delmar Smith HallBuilding
Crater Rock MuseumCategory
PermanentMoved By
Curtis GardnerDate
May 24, 2023Notes
Added current location
