Description
Superb large set of intact, brilliant wine-colored axinite crystals associated with green baguette epidote crystals, on a finely crystallized gneissic gangue. Very nice contrast, very nice size. The crystals are upright, an aerial specimen!
On the back of the specimen, epidote, albite, axinite and perhaps a little pyrrhotite are visible.
Axinite, a mineral emblematic of the Oisans massif, has been discovered in a few rare localities, and is often difficult and dangerous to extract.
Discoveries are rare.
These axinite crystals come from the Rochers d’Armentier deposit, a cliff above Bourg d’Oisans in the Isère department.
Here’s a video of these axinite and epidote crystals from the Oisans:
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