• A long tapered piece of sputnik aragonite composed of rounded lumpy forms. The crystals are small and short, tightly packed like tiles. It has a mix of red-brown and white crystals, with and opaque white mineral visible between some crystals.
  • Another side of the piece, with two patches of broken crystals appearing white and opaque. Surrounding crystals are well-formed but a bit haphazardly arranged.
  • The bottom of the piece, with some rough crystals and two flat breaks. The breaks have exposed the red-and-white radial patterns of the crystal growth. There is fine opaque white mineral dusting this side and deposited between minerals.
  • Detail of white and red-brown crystals, showing good translucency and pseudo-hexagonal form. The piece is dusted with a small opaque mineral.
  • Detail of mixed white and red-brown crystals, some taller well-formed crystals.
  • Detail of the surface, with a lot of the pseudo-hexagonal crystals flattened into diamond or parallelogram shapes. There is good translucency. There is an opaque white and red mineral spotting the piece between crystals
  • The piece on a mineral shelf, showing it is relatively vibrant red-brown with good luster.
  • Detail of a flat broken end of the piece, showing an excellent cross-section of the radial growth pattern of the red and white sputnik crystals. It reveals some crystals are red near the base then turn white.
  • Scale image of the piece on a measuring mat, measuring a bit over five and a quarter inched long, and about two and a half inches wide.
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Bicolor sputnik aragonite, large

Bicolor sputnik aragonite, large

$25.00 USD
$25.00 USD
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Locale: Morocco

Approx dimensions: 5.25 x 2.5"

Approx weight: 568g

 

This variety of aragonite clusters earns its trade name from the resemblance to the Sputnik satellite, with crystals protruding out in all directions. The bicolor variety grows crystals that are red-brown and a grayish-white color. This piece is long, formed of multiple rounded forms and flat on one side so it stands well for display. There are a lot of areas of broken crystals, including the flat breaks on the bottom. They reveal pretty distinct radial crystal patterns in red and white, showing some crystals change color as they grow.

Sputnik aragonite grows clusters of elongated hexagonal barrel-shaped crystals, radiating out from a central point. The crystal habit is actually 'pseudo-hexagonal' meaning the crystals that appear hexagonal are actually formed of multiple intergrown crystals (crystal 'twinning'). This pseudo-hexagonal crystal habit is common in aragonite! The crystals grow similar to the arms of a snowflake, forming six small pie-wedges (the boundary between crystals is about halfway between points).

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