Cavansite with Stilbite

specimen number:
9892112

location:
Wagholi, Pune, Maharashtra, India

description:
A cluster of blue cavansite crystal 0.8 cm across on a matrix of crystallized stilbite. Slight micro-damage present.

Wagholi, located near Pune in Maharashtra, India, is historically renowned as a settlement with roots dating back to the Maratha Empire and later developed into a major commercial basalt-quarrying center. Industrial quarrying operations in the area began around the 1960s and expanded heavily through the 1970s and 1990s, eventually comprising a complex of roughly 40 quarries that largely ceased active extraction by the mid-2020s. Geologically, the site sits within the Deccan Traps flood basalt province, which formed roughly 65 million years ago during major continental volcanic pulses. The local horizontal basalt flows feature extensive vugs, amygdales, and flow-top breccias filled with low-temperature secondary minerals. Wagholi is especially famous among mineralogists as the type locality for the rare bright blue silicate minerals cavansite (discovered there in 1974) and pentagonite, which crystallized alongside zeolites, apophyllite, and silica phases in the basalt cavities.

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