This specimen features a pair of sharp, lustrous zircon crystals. The one on the right has a double, parallel-growth, termination, and the one on the left is deep red. In excellent condition, the crystal on the left has minor chipping on the outer left edge, which faces away from the main display view – it’s visible if you’re examining it closely under the light, and it doesn’t jump out out when displayed for viewing. The piece stands perfectly for display as photographed. The crystals fluoresce yellow under short-wave ultraviolet light, as shown in the last photograph. A really nice pair of matrix red zircon crystals.
About these Zircon Specimens
These zircons are from a relatively large new find of zircons from Astor Valley, in Pakistan. A locality that has sporadically produced moderate amounts of material in recent years, this recent find produced a large number of pieces. However, fine zircons are proportionally very few. There are two key reasons for this. First, the zircons are enclosed within solid rock with other hard constituent minerals, such that a good number of zircons were broken when they were collected. However, the second reason is the much more prevalent issue based on the material I’ve seen: the zircon crystals seem to have formed more or less contemporaneously with most of the other minerals in the deposit – feldspar, biotite mica, and pyroxene – and as a result, most of the zircon crystals are not fully developed. Instead, most zircon crystal growth was interrupted by the growth of these other minerals, and therefore most zircons are simply incomplete, or malformed. And yet, among well over 1000 pieces I went through from this find, there were a few excellent specimens.