Anatase with Quartz

specimen number:
9302374

location:
Hardangervidda West, Ullensvang, Vestland, Norway

description:
Very fine Norwegian classic, this showing crystals of colorless gemmy quartz to 3.0 cm in size across the top of matrix. These quartz crystals are hosting many fine blue lustrous double terminated crystals of anatase measuring to 0.5 cm in size. What at first may appear to be damage to some of the quartz crystals on the backside of the piece is actually naturally crystallized. This is in terrific condition. Wonderful miniature for this Norwegian classic.

Hardangervidda West in Ullensvang, Norway, is a high-mountain plateau area with human history stretching back over 10,000 years to post-glacial Stone Age nomadic hunters. While it features ancient cultural sites and historical reindeer hunting tracks, it is a natural landscape rather than an industrial mining site, meaning it has no commercial opening or closing dates, though the core area was protected within Hardangervidda National Park established in 1981. Geologically, the region forms part of Europe's largest peneplain, consisting of ancient Precambrian basement rocks and overthrust Cambro-Silurian nappes from the Caledonian orogeny, which were heavily shaped by glacial action during the Ice Ages. The area is celebrated as Norway's classic locality for the mineral anatase (titanium dioxide), which occurs as lustrous, blue-black tetragonal bipyramidal crystals grown directly on rich alpine quartz fissures, particularly at localities like Matskorhae.

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