Epidote

specimen number:
2072271

location:
Green Monster Mtn., Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, USA

description:
An attractive spray of lustrous prismatic epidote crystals. A somewhat unusual crystal habit for the species and locality. This is in good condition all around and was collected by Doug Toland.

Green Monster Mountain, located on Prince of Wales Island within the Alexander Archipelago of southeastern Alaska, is a world-renowned locality for exceptional epidote crystals. Geologically, the deposit is a contact metamorphic skarn formed where mid-Paleozoic limestones were intruded by quartz diorite stocks, creating large cavities lined with minerals. The site is famous for its dark green to nearly black, highly lustrous epidote crystals which often occur in large, fan-shaped clusters or thick prismatic forms, frequently associated with quartz and copper minerals like malachite. Historically, the area was first prospected for copper in the early 1900s, with claims being active between 1900 and 1910 during a regional mining boom. While it never became a major industrial quarrying operation for metal ore, it was rediscovered as a premier specimen locality in the mid-20th century. Since the 1960s, various independent miners and mineral collectors have worked the steep, rugged terrain under seasonal leases to recover museum-quality specimens. Today, Green Monster Mountain remains an active and challenging site for specimen mining, consistently producing what many consider to be the finest epidote crystals found in the United States.

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