Aragonite

specimen number:
2292430

location:
Tazouta, Fes-Meknes, Morocco

description:
Very attractive floater cluster of lustrous partly gemmy pseudo-hexagonal twinned aragonite crystals. In great condition.

The Tazouta region, located southeast of Sefrou in the Fes-Meknes region of northern Morocco, sits within a tectonically active subsidiary basin of the folded Middle Atlas Mountains. Geologically, the area is notable for its Triassic and Permian red clay deposits. Within these alluvial clay layers, low-temperature, carbonate-rich fluids circulated and precipitated calcium carbonate. Because aragonite is an orthorhombic polymorph of calcium carbonate, its physical structure naturally tends to form cyclic twins. This repeated twinning of three individual intergrown crystals creates the illusion of hexagonal symmetry, resulting in distinct pseudohexagonal prisms. In the late twentieth century, local mining and excavation of these red clay beds revealed these crystals, which often occur as iron-stained, reddish-brown to translucent amber floater clusters radiating outward from a common center.

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