Description

Large plate of quartz crystals, sometimes oxidized (or perhaps hematoid), sometimes chloritic (green), sometimes transparent, but in all cases very bright. Quartz crystals are fairly flat, often covered with small golden rosettes of pyrite (or marcasite, hard to say).

The Bierghes quarry is located in the province of Brabant Wallon, 20 km east of Lessines and 30 km west of Brussels.
The rock quarried at Bierghes is a plutonic magmatic rock, from which superb quartz with a variety of facies has been extracted. In contrast to the rather young alpine quartz, these crystals are over 300 million years old.

The sample presented here is a good illustration of this rare Belgian mineralogy.

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