FRAMED RED AND GREEN EMERALD (beryl)
MATCHING SPECIMEN SET
“Pair of Cans”
Here is pair of beautifully-formed, free-floating red and green beryl prisms. Emerald crystals grow from a nucleation point attached to a matrix, so the “attachment end” where crystals began to grow from their host rock is typically not as well-formed than the "growth end" termination rising outward and away. The finest mineral specimens typically have one well-formed termination where the classic hexagon can be observed.
Colombian Emeralds famously grow in mica schists, but Red Emeralds from America grow in tight fractures between rhyolite rocks. When schists, seams or fissures containing Emeralds are opened by miners, crystals will often fall out, due to the “attachment ends” being loosened from their perches over millions of years.
Only these two varieties of beryl formed under intense pressure, and similar alterations to their standard hexagonal prismatic forms can be observed. Emerald prisms typically grow in-parallel with each other, so when a new crystal emerges from an old one, the smaller may begin to protrude from a side. Emeralds are said to have “six rotational axes”. Drawing a line from the center of a termination to each of the six points on its hexagonal end reveals the directions of growth for these “axes”.
New crystals can form along any of these vectors, but due to the finite number of options WHERE they may emerge, similar patterns of architecture are repeatedly seen in Emerald crystals. Sidecars can develop parallel, perpendicular or even sideways to the primary direction of prismatic growth. Attached crystals can be angled inward, outward, down or up. These specimens each have a small sidecar angled upwards and attached to the bottom half of the main prism…which presents the appearance of a ‘spout’, similar to that of a watering can in a garden. Careful examination of the red example reveals multiple additional prisms stacked around the spout. When numerous prisms are conjoined in a larger crystal mass, that specimen is called a Cluster. These types of crystal architecture are incredibly rare!
These crystals were used in the argument put forward in the Red Emerald Dictionary that two sets of the same geometries are mathematically-equivalent to each other!! These specimens are very small, but two matching colors with the same shape is still an incredibly rare find in this mineral family! These pairs have been photographed and professionally-framed with double-matting to shadow-box the crystals and showcase them hanging in suspension.
Put nature’s artwork on your wall!
Please note the framed specimen sets are shown as an example. The actual frame you will receive contains the crystals in the first photo.