Gonnardite Mineral

Hey dear community, first of all I would like to wish you all a pleasant day and hope you were able to have one or the other positive experience! In my new post, I would like to bring a mineral a little closer and hope you can expand your knowledge.

You can see a representative of the mineral class of germanates and silicates, which is also known as Gonnardite and in addition it is counted to the group of zeolites. The first mentions of this rather rare mineral go back to the 19th century and can be traced back to the French mineralogist Antoine François Alfred Lacroix (1863 - 1948) who already had in his young years a huge interest for mineral and when naming Gonnardite, he referred to the mineralogist Pierre Joseph Ferdinand Gonnard (1833 - 1923) and named it in his honor. The formation can be traced back to hydrothermal origins and can often be found in the cavities of volcanic rocks and depending on the location, the appearance of the crystals can vary and have a shiny surface as well as transparent properties and the color is usually white, but can take on other colors through contamination or additions with other minerals. The crystals also often tend to have an appearance reminiscent of small spheres as in this specimen and due to the rarity there are no areas of application from an economic point of view and it is particularly popular in collectors' circles and it has only been found in less than 200 locations so far and it was first found in France and other important sites are Italy, Spain, England, South and North America as well as Norway.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about minerals! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!