Two weekends ago I had to attend a family reunion in Black Mountain.  As luck would have it, the annual gem and mineral show was taking place at the Colburn Mineral Museum in Asheville.  I was able to use the free afternoon on Saturday to go to Asheville.  I was able to pick up another specimen of clay (mud) included quartz from Hickory.

Below are some photos of the specimen with a few comments.  I would like to get some feed back on what you see, and would especially like to hear from John F. who recently joined the forum since he has so much experience in the Hickory/Tate Boulevard area.

This specimen has a lot of stuff going on, or it did during melting, recrystalization, and post-crystalization.  It does not show, but a few minor crystal faces.  It exhibits a smooth fracturing structure, cavities that may have been liquid filled and exploded during freezing and thawing, parallel growth formation that the clay invaded, and much more.  I have been researching this some and have some good explanations by J.T. Humphreys that did a lot of intitial work in Hickory (1875-1880), and A.C. Bates that amassed excellent quartz from Lincoln Co. (mid 1890s).

Here are the photos:




This is what I consider the display side of the specimen.  Note the stepped triangular growth on the front.




A closeup of the stepped growth.




The bottom side showing a large cavity and some parallel growth.




A closeup of the cavity area.  It definitely looks as if it exploded at some point.




Another view of the parallel growth with clay invaded.



It is hard to determine how much of the clay was included a long time ago, or if it is of more recent origin......after the crystal exploded and opened more cavities.

It's not the most aesthetic quartz, but it has a lot of oddity and mystery which I like.  Enjoy.

Dennis

From what I have read on skeleton quartz, the edges grow quicker than the faces and therefor the edges stand out like frames of a window.  Skeleton quartz develops very quickly.  AKA fenster quartz, or window quartz.

They apparently grow in an environment with rapidly falling temperatures and/or pressures.


Here's my source of information  (Skeleton Quartz):

http://www.quartzpage.de/gro_text.html#fensterquarz

I can believe that!

Thanks for all the great pics of that piece, Dennis.
I would call that "Accordion" Habit.

Have a great weekend!
Joe