Anatase

specimen number:
1605113

location:
Datas, Minas Gerais, Brazil

description:
A set of two sharply formed anatase crystals. Size is provided for the larger of the two.

Datas is a historic municipality located in the central region of Minas Gerais, Brazil, within the high plateau of the Espinhaco mountain range. Its name derives directly from the Portuguese administrative term datas, meaning allotments, which were parcels of land granted to individual miners under the colonial licensing system. Geologically, the area is situated in the Diamantina district, where ancient Precambrian quartzites and sedimentary formations of the Espinhaço Supergroup host diamond-bearing deposits. Over millions of years, weathering and fluvial action concentrated these minerals into secondary alluvial gravels along local river valleys and hillslopes. Historically, mining activity surged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under Portuguese colonial rule, when enslaved labor was heavily utilized to wash and sieve the gravels for diamonds, establishing the locality as a key contributor to Brazil's era as a dominant global diamond producer.

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