I don't know how extraordinary this vug is but I think it's
pretty darn interesting.
This is from the Reel Amethyst Mine, in Iron Station, NC.
The first pic is of the whole vug. Many times these brown
masses left in vugs even after soaking in Iron Out or oxalic
acid are written off as stubborn clumps of clay, but usually
there's more to them than first meets the eye. This particular
piece is a good example.



The blue line to the left represents 16mm. Hopefully you can
see that the hollow spaces remaining in the "clay" appear to
be the negative impressions of some mineral that has now
eroded away. It looks like there were two large crystals at
one time. This, I believe, would be called an "epimorph".
I have to wonder if the "clay-looking" material is the remains
of the now decomposed mineral crystals presently morphed
to Limonite, Goethite, or one of those "rusty" oxides?

Anyway, I'm going to work my way counter-clockwise
around this vug starting with those black flecks in the
bottom right area. I'm just guessing they are some form of
Hematite, but occasionally you can see a "blue flash" from them.





On my way up and around to the backside of this vug I
came across this nice little cluster of crystals. In the upper
right corner you can see some more of the black splotches
and maybe the "blue-flash" I mentioned.



Now we get to the back side of this vug and what I thought
was really interesting about it. I'm not certain what these
"cubes" are, but here are three pics for you to look at.







Limonite after Pyrite or Siderite? I don't remember seeing
any other Pyrite in my specimens from the Reel Mine, so I'm
leaning toward Siderite. Especially the way they step down
from the top level to the bottom.

And speaking of the bottom, that's where we are. I wish
I could've gotten a better pic of this quartz cluster at the
bottom of the vug. I love the color.



Kind of makes me want to get back there and do some more
digging!
Thanks for looking,
Joe

Yes, a thousand apologies. This piece has not been soaked
in any acid bath yet. I'm so used to soaking everything that
I forgot I didn't soak this because I didn't want to take the
chance of losing anything in it. That's the way it looked when
I cracked the rock open.
And yes again, I was wondering about the Citrine possibility?
I don't know if I want to soak the piece yet or not to find out.
I hadn't thought of Calcite for the cubes, but looking at the
link you provided Calcite sure looks good.
I know I really need to start using some photo-stacking
hardware to get better focus in these pics. They are marginal at best.

Thanks, AG. It is a pretty cool little vug. I have a couple more
I'm going to be looking at. Need to work on the focus on that thing.

Hope you got some digging on your agenda for this weekend.

Joe