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This elegant specimen features transparent quartz crystals perched on matrix, accented by delicate chlorite coatings and scattered apatite crystals. The quartz displays excellent Alpine form, with sharp, lustrous terminations and faint inclusions that give depth and visual texture. Chlorite presents as a soft green film along crystal faces, highlighting the natural aesthetic contrast between clarity and mineral coating typical of fine Alpine cleft material.
Alpine cleft minerals such as quartz, chlorite, and apatite form in open fissures within metamorphic rock under high-pressure, low-temperature hydrothermal conditions. As fluids circulated through tectonic fractures, they precipitated successive generations of crystals, each recording subtle changes in chemistry and temperature. The association seen here—clear quartz with green chlorite and minor apatite—is a classic Alpine paragenesis, representing the mineralogical signature of the Valais region.
This specimen originates from Valais, Switzerland, a world-renowned region for Alpine cleft mineralogy. The Swiss Alps are famous for producing exceptional quartz crystals, often associated with chlorite, adularia, and apatite, each forming within narrow fissures created by mountain-building processes. The purity of the quartz, the elegance of the crystal arrangement, and the subtle interplay of associated minerals make this piece a superb example of European Alpine mineral formation.
Collected in the 1980s and jointly part of the Brian Shelton and A & G McDonald Collections, this specimen measures 100 × 60 × 32 mm and weighs 170 grams. It stands as a fine representation of true Alpine cleft mineralogy
