Babingtonite with Prehnite
specimen number:
2102329
location:
Lane Quarry, Westfield, Massachusetts, USA
description: The Lane and Son traprock quarry, situated in Westfield along the Hampden County border in Massachusetts, United States, is an iconic American mineral locality globally renowned for producing some of the world's finest, highly lustrous crystals of the rare inosilicate babingtonite, which serves as the official state mineral of Massachusetts. Geologically, this expansive industrial excavation cuts directly into the massive, Jurassic-age Holyoke Basalt, a thick volcanic lava flow sequence associated with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean and the formation of the Connecticut River Valley rift system. As these basaltic lavas cooled, escaping gases and tectonic stresses created complex fracture networks and open vesicular pockets that were subsequently infiltrated by low-temperature hydrothermal fluids, allowing sharp, jet-black, and wedge-shaped babingtonite prisms to crystallize in breathtaking aesthetic contrast atop spherical, pale green aggregates of prehnite, datolite, and calcite. Historically, organized open-cast quarrying at the site was initiated in 1891 by John S. Lane and Sons to extract crushed stone and road aggregate, and the locality gained immediate fame among scientists and elite collectors following a highly publicized 1935 discovery of world-class babingtonite veins by Harvard University mineralogists. Through 2026, the Lane quarry stands as one of the oldest and longest continuously operating commercial traprock quarries in the region, and while modern automated aggregate processing restricts safe specimen recovery, classic antique babingtonite specimens secured here during the twentieth century remain prized, elite benchmarks of classic North American mineralogy.
Excellent lustrous black crystals of babingtonite measuring to 1.7 cm in size on matrix with yellowish green botryoidal crystallized prehnite. This is in very good condition. Very choice for this Massachusetts classic.
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