Barite

specimen number:
2133385

location:
Book Cliffs, Mesa Co., Colorado, USA

description:
Glassy gem quality crystal of barite coming off of a small amount of matrix. In great condition. Nice thumbnail for this classic Colorado locality.

The Book Cliffs, stretching from eastern Utah into northern Mesa County, Colorado, are a prominent series of desert cliffs well-known as a classic locality for barite crystals. Geologically, this extensive escarpment is composed of Cretaceous-aged sedimentary sequences deposited along the margins of the Western Interior Seaway, specifically featuring the sandstones, shales, and mudstones of the Mancos Shale and Mesaverde Group. Within these marine and deltaic formations, large septarian concretions and open sedimentary fractures developed over millions of years, creating perfect cavities for low-temperature groundwaters to deposit minerals. These localized pockets host distinct, well-formed barite crystals that range from colorless and white to pale yellow or amber, often found growing inside the hollow interiors of the host concretions. While field geologists and mineral collectors have explored these exposures along the cliff faces since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the locality remains a decentralized, outdoor field-collecting site without formalized corporate dates of operation.

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