Natural Sugar Quartz Cluster Crystal with Sphalerite from Bulgaria 249g

A long, flat piece whose whole upper face is a field of rounded sugar quartz mounds, each one a small cauliflower head grown tight against its neighbours. The crust is a soft pale blue-grey, fine and even, giving the surface a frosted, granular texture across the full 119mm. Between the mounds, dark sphalerite shows through in small angular patches, dozens of them, so the piece carries a scattered dark speckle over a light ground. A darker seam runs along the right edge where the sphalerite comes through more strongly.

The sugar quartz crust grew over an earlier sphalerite-bearing surface, and where it did not close over completely the sulfide underneath stays visible. That is what gives this piece its speckled look. From the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria. Untreated. Quartz is 7 on the Mohs scale and sphalerite 3.5 to 4, and at only 22mm thick this is a flat plate that displays best face-up.

Natural sugar quartz with sphalerite, Bulgaria, single piece.