Fluorite

Fluorite is a beautiful mineral that comes in many colors.  The most common color is purple but it can also be varying shades of green, blue, yellow, pink, and more.  Fluorite is  calcium fluoride.  It most often forms in hydrothermal environments, where hot fluids associated with a magma are introduced into a host rock such as limestone.  The fluids mix with the host rock to create a suite of unique minerals.

Fluorite crystals can be cubic and sometimes fluorite fills in spaces in the host rock in a botryoidal, or bubbly looking, pattern.  Fluorite has a hardness of 4 on Moh’s hardness scale, which is relatively soft.  The softness and the cleavage of this mineral make it pretty fragile.  These slabs have been stabilized to help with the fragile nature.

These slabs have been stabilized with butvar, a museum grade consolidant.  This will help to hold together the rock along fracture weaknesses.  This technique is described in my article on stabilization or my youtube video.

The slabs have been drop tested, which means they were dropped onto a hard surface to ensure they did not break apart.

The location of these slabs is unknown, although I suspect that it is material from Colorado.  The purple and teal fluorite is mixed into the yellowish and brownish host rock, making numerous unique patterns.