Quartz

specimen number:
8911198

location:
I Me Mine, Garland Co., Arkansas, USA

description:
Attractive grouping of glassy gem quartz crystals without matrix. Complete all around, this is in good condition. The specimen was collected by Blake Barnett in 2023 or 2024. The specimen comes with a previous label from the Alton collection.

Located near Jessieville in Garland County, Arkansas, the I Me Mine property is set within the Ouachita Mountains fold belt, where intense Paleozoic tectonic deformation fractured the native sandstone and shale formations. During late Paleozoic regional mountain building, warm hydrothermal fluids saturated with dissolved silica migrated upward through these fracture networks, cooling and crystallizing inside open spaces to produce veins of exceptionally clear quartz. Native Americans crafted tools and arrowheads from local rock crystal thousands of years ago, but modern commercial and specimen mining expanded across the region during the 19th and 20th centuries. Operated as a fee-mining locality for rockhounds and mineral collectors, the I Me Mine has gained fame for yielding sharp, high-lustre quartz crystals, classic clusters, and well-formed double-terminated specimens extracted from the rich clay-filled pockets of the area.

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